Where Batswana, particularly in Selebi Phikwe, expected to hear how the revenues in 2017/18 would be spent to alleviate the fall-out from BCL Mine’s closure, Matambo only repeated statements made in November about the Phikwe revitalisation strategy.
Where nearly all eyes were on the Finance Minister’s fervently seeking a comprehensive response to the wave of job losses in mining and parastatals, Matambo stuck to the script, effectively reproducing his October 2016 presentation to the National Assembly about NDP 11. In fact, the Finance Minister repeated, for emphasis, that Government’s role was not to create jobs directly, through the civil service, but rather to facilitate the private sector’s development. That line of rhetoric can only sound condescending and uncaring to the thousands in the street, who know perfectly well that Government has a range of interventions in its arsenal within which to assist them in terms of school fees, education, health care and other opportunities. The speech sounded as though it was written in a vacuum, far removed from the reality on the ground and thus totally unresponsive to the emerging and urgent concerns Batswana are currently grappling with.
