Speaking during the launch of the Bonno Target 3000 Housing Development Project in Kgale View this week, Boko said doctors are complaining about their low wages and that their complaints are valid and undeniable.
“Most of these individuals in the public service work hard in the most difficult of circumstances. Why are they in these difficult circumstances? Sometimes we forget the history behind where we are. We become ahistorical and temporal, and this atemporality leads us into a grave error. We, as a country, for a very long time, operated what was deliberately designed to be a low-wage economy. We thought and it was thought by the leadership that this low wage economy would attract truckloads of foreign direct investment, it hasn’t, but what it has attracted is a generalised wholesale impoverishment of our people, including those who are employed and gainfully employed,” he said. Boko added that it is not just doctors but nurses, teachers, and the police who are also complaining. He said there is a generalised discontent about these historical, systemic injustices. “We need to wrestle with these on the trot. So when the accusations come flying in thick and fast, we need to bear them with fortitude, appreciating that while we did not create these circumstances, we are charged with the responsibility of resolving the crisis attendant upon these circumstances,” he highlighted.
Boko indicated that they cannot run away from these issues rocking the health sector and many others. Boko’s comments come at a time when various doctors across the country haven't responded to emergency calls. The doctors through Botswana Doctors Union (BDU) gave their employer Directorate of Public Service Management (DPSM), an ultimatum of 72 hours to finalise this, and failing finalisation, its members will perform one emergency call per month.
Even though Boko agrees with doctors, the Minister of Health, Dr Stephen Modise at a press briefing this week said that what doctors are doing is illegal.
