Budget will impoverish Batswana - UDC
Moeti Mohwasa | Friday February 5, 2021 11:13
A national cake itself is made out of citizens’ taxes and common national resources such as minerals and sales of other national assets. The budget must therefore be fair and benefit everyone who has a stake in the country.
In its 2019 Manifesto, Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC) argued that under the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) government, workers, students, old age pensioners and the unemployed are poorly paid. Hence they are not fair beneficiaries of our national wealth. We then promised to correct this by introducing a living wage of P3,000, tertiary student allowance of P2,500 and an old age pension of P1,500.
Ours was a people-centred development approach. We also promised to create 100,000 jobs in 12 months and substantially reform Ipelegeng. Ours would have been a people’s budget. We would also have invested heavily in agriculture, manufacturing and infrastructure. The BDP criticised UDC on these offerings because it does not want Batswana to benefit from their taxes.
This current budget is a rich man’s budget and shows the State’s determination to extract more resources to enrich its coffers while impoverishing Batswana.
A budget under COVID-19 should have been more creative and put more money in the hands of the informal sector and small businesses, farmers’ produce, introduced unemployed allowances and excluded basic foods from Value Added Tax (VAT).
Instead, government has increased VAT, Botswana Housing Corporation (BHC) rentals, electricity tariffs, water tariffs and transport costs through increase of fuel prices. This is BDP at its best, a failed government. Batswana are feeling the impact of successive budgets under the BDP rule. A budget can either reduce or increase the gap between the haves and have nots. Turning to the current budget, we believe Batswana have nothing to celebrate. In fact , they have every reason to be worried as it is clear our country is on a downward trajectory.
There was hope that the Budget will come with a Marshal Plan to revamp our ailing economy. COVID-19 is on the rampage and the future is so uncertain. People had hope but that hope has now turned into despair. The increase of the Income Tax threshold will come to naught as whatever will be gained will still be taken by the taxman through increased VAT. In the face of the COVID-19 pandemic, the government is not saying much. It is business as usual as we await WHO and MTN donated vaccines to us.
It is unfortunate that the government still does not want to accept that the poor performance of parastatals has to do with its inability to adhere to good corporate governance, accountability and meritocracy. Our parastatals are not performing because there is rampant corruption. A project that should have cost P600 million ends up costing P900 million for example because of padding. The difference is money that could have been used to raise the standard of living for our people through provision of much needed social amenities or increasing social grants for the poor and elderly.
Ethiopian Airlines, a parastatal, is one of the best airlines in the world. The government should know that efficiency is a function of management not ownership. Minus corruption, these entities can provide employment and generate profit.
Put aside the sugar coating, according to the Budget Speech, the government has embarked on a path to throw some of its workers into the streets just like it has done with those in the Parastatals.
The privatisation that is being talked about is also going to put more people in the streets. The BDP government has absolved itself from the responsibility of maintaining and creating job opportunities. As if that is not enough, it fails to come up with figures that indicate how many jobs are going to be created as a result of the envisaged 8.8 percent economic growth.
What we have is a government that has abdicated its responsibility to care for its citizens. As a nation we just have to accept what the opposition has said over the years. The BDP government is not there to serve our interests.
MOETI MOHWASA*
*Mohwasa is the UDC head of communications