Action for Jobs: I'ts now or forever damned
Correspondent | Friday February 12, 2021 14:58
And well, the other shoe has finally fallen! Finance and Economic Development Minister Thapelo Matsheka might as well have said that, closed his briefcase and left the August House. Amongst those who said something immediately was former Investment, Trade and Industry Minister Bogolo Kenewendo. Her message? Prepare! Prepare for a future where consumption is squeezed as consumer pockets are raided. Prepare to lose your job as businesses decide to survive instead of trade. Prepare to purchase goods below the quality you are used to. Prepare to lose your husband or wife if they are bankruptcy averse. Prepare for an increase in social ills like gender-based violence as individuals within the family unit become more disillusioned as the Botswana dream as a shining example of astute governance crumbles. Prepare! That is what she is saying. It all sounds like a prelude to the end of the diamond era. Francistown as a relic of a golden age and Selebi-Phikwe of copper-nickel, provide illustrious examples. Prepare for the worst and hope for the best.
And it is the best that we are hoping for as we mobilise the nation to join in our cause – Action for Jobs! It is either we do something right now or forever rue the day we stood by and ignored the desperation of Botswana government’s call for assistance with job creation. In the last installment, a case was made for the private sector’s participation in this long overdue, national project. The private sector is risking its own survival if it fails to invest in its own future. The worst is that the free market will crumble and go into destitution, a situation that will decimate the sector. And that should not be allowed to happen as it will force a change to Batswana’s value of self-reliance. And if Batswana are unable to rely on themselves, then who would they rely on? Perhaps, this is the question to ponder as the nation analyses the budget speech as presented on February 1, 2021. A prediction can be made that should this living generation fail to answer this question, history will decide to cancel it. And do not even think otherwise.
Because as we speak, a bunch of fired-up creative youth are now midway through their first phase of training. They have been exposed to the hardest part of creative production, pre-production! The creative sector presents a greater opportunity to create mass upward mobility for the many youth, most of them graduated, roaming the streets, dazed by such uninspiring future predictions of economic activity as presented by the Minister of Finance and Development. The focus on this area was informed by the glaring lack of depth seen in a majority of Botswana’s productions. In many ways, this lack of acumen is the basis of Action for Jobs and it is aimed at addressing the challenges faced by the creative sector such as;
low quality of script-writing that does not meet audience needs, limited access to training opportunities for new entrants to the industry, lack of coordination, promotion and monitoring of skills-transfer initiatives rapid and continual technological changes that require ongoing skills development, and lack of business entrepreneurial capacity. Action for Jobs is not the be-all solution for employment creation, but it is definitely a start. At best, the 2021/2022 budget should scare Batswana into supporting an Alliance that is as worried by the future as they are. This will create the right snowball effect required to lift the economy off its knees. Is it easy? No! Is it possible? Yes! But it requires participation, a lending to the future as it were. As the August House now settles to debate the budget, the debate should not be about the present, it should be about Action for Jobs. The more jobs there are, the better life’s experience will be. As diamond mining shrinks every other day a synthetic diamond gets purchased, it is instructive that the nation pauses to consider cooling the economy. And the most effective way to do so is to get involved in the Action for Jobs. Be inspired!
GABRIEL RASENGWATSHE*
*Gabriel RasengwatsheGabriel Rasengwatshe is the Gabz-FM Station Manager and Action for Jobs Lead Strategist. He writes here in his personal capacity