While it may be true that directives are not entirely new as a means of governance in Botswana, it is a fact that in the past, they were used sparingly. We can be sure that the reason directives were not commonplace in the past was that they were shunned for their lack of consultation and the disharmony they were likely to bring about if thrust upon people. And thrust upon people is the nature of their delivery because they are not a product of due deliberation or groupthink with all concerned in the matter at hand.
Indeed, the undemocratic nature of directives is found immediately in the etymology of the word, its close cousins being dreadful words like decree, dictate, command, edict and order.However, the greater dead lies in the possibility that the meaning of the word also defines the attributes of those who prefer directives as a means of governance. Unfortunately for Botswana, it appears that this is the case with President Ian Khama. Batswana cannot be hard put to remember that it was Khama who gave their country its first freestanding Vice President when he dispensed with Parliament as a waste of time. And so it was that - perhaps as a face saving gimmick - then President Festus Mogae gave Khama the role of supervisor of government projects. It was Khama who, speaking at what was an occasion to give Batswana a peek into what their future President would be like when he presided at a graduation ceremony at BIAC, the then Vice President pronounced himself one who never read newspapers.But even though Khama might have read Batswana well as the most docile lot in the world, his directives were bound to generate antipathy. And it happened this week, though perhaps not for the first time, when the Mayor of Gaborone, Haskins Nkaigwa, told full council: "Such directives undermine the core principles of democracy as they are done without our consent." The Mayor referred specifically to the directive that took away the responsibility of water from councils to the central government; a directive that has wrought problems multiplied. Thankfully, President Khama cannot pretend to be unaware of the problems that sprang directly from what is now a notorious directive. At every turn as the President embraces rural audiences with warm blankets, he is told of myriad problems the directive has engendered. First among them is the nationwide issue of poor delivery by Water Utilities Corporation that renders whole populations thirsty while burdening them with gargantuan tariffs. To be sure, the tariffs actually became an occasion for fleecing rural populations with VAT after everyone on Government Enclave had sworn by the hills that VAT would never be levied on water outside urban centres. When the matter of VAT was finally settled, the issue became the gargantuan bills based on guesstimates. Councils now suspect that directives are meant to render them irrelevant and abolish devolution of power and decentralisation. We think someone should listen.
