Of course this is all reported as a distant thought, something government is not any closer to considering than legalising homosexual sex. It is just that the pension idea has had reports and studies written about it. However, we all know that the issue of a basic occupational pension scheme is of grave importance to this country's fight against poverty than any fancy idea the Office of the President's legion of creative thinkers can conjure up.
Poverty in this country is endemic partly because the majority of the unemployed actually do have a history of gainful employment, but do not have access to any reasonable pension benefits. Is it any wonder that the unscrupulous employer has now taken to abusing our country's lax labour laws? In any serious economy it would be impossible for any employer to assume that when he is done with his employee he will dump the old chap on our social security net. We find some of our people, some of whom had dedicated decades of their service to the employer, walking away, at retirement, with nothing but a word of encouragement. We know that without adequate pension cover, employees walk straight into poverty and thus put more pressure on our already overstretched social security budget. We think government's reluctance to implement a rigorous and mandatory pension scheme, across the board, is the most graphic example of a government that does not have a clue as to how poverty could be realistically fought. A pension scheme, unlike social security net, puts less pressure on the national coffers since it is supported by private sector involvement. President Khama knows that some of the recipients of the houses being built - at his bidding - by volunteers across the country are actually historically employed. Poor people in many communities are mostly retirees or retrenchees. It is almost impossible to find someone who has never been employed in Botswana. If government can portray such a carefree attitude towards the welfare of its most vulnerable citizenry why should the private sector, that is more concerned about the bottom line, care? It is emblematic of our way of doing things that we are giving more attention to corporate social responsibility issues, such as the President's call for the corporate sector to build houses for the poor, rather than working on a viable option of preventing people actually falling into the poverty trap. If our President were as serious about poverty eradication as he sounds, he would have known that the best place to start in his endeavour would be the mandatory pension scheme. But then again, with our current government, you never know how serious it is.
