Khama, Boko: What these nemeses forgot to say
Bame Piet | Friday December 16, 2016 15:31
When he took the podium in Parliament chamber last Wednesday, his body language made it easy to predict what he was going to say about his arch-rival, President Ian Khama. Khama’s demeanour during the presentation of this year’s SONA was that of a very troubled man, less energetic, and seemingly wishing he could finish reading those 20 pages. His voice lacked charisma and his right eye did look like somebody who had been attacked by a leopard in recent days.
Despite his disdain for Khama, the good thing is that Boko still respects him as President and referred to him as such in his response to the SONA.
“President Khama’s regime has squandered the advantages handed to it, and offered us a dead-end disguised as a path. He took us on a perilous course. In many ways our nation is worse off today than it was when the current administration took over the reins. We are a country in deep disenchantment and on the verge of despair. The state of our nation is a cause for alarm,” he told the House with a fully packed public gallery.
Members from the other side were listening to him attentively, some perhaps in agreement with him, that Khama has brought more misery for Batswana than ever in the country’s history.
Boko spoke with confidence about the Khama regime’s failures, but stated that he alone should not be blamed for the mess, but his inner circle too. He was right. It started with all sorts of fix-it-now or short-term programmes such as the Constituency League, Ipelegeng, volunteer policing, Tirelo Sechaba, backyard gardening and others. The majority of the projects have failed, whilst others are on deathbed and the President seemed too embarrassed to give feedback on their status amid job losses in the mining and other sectors of the economy.
“As I have said before, our President is like a demon propitiated only by human sacrifice and suffering,” was Boko’s statement that nearly brought Parliament debates to a standstill with BDP members demanding that he should withdraw the statement. They argued that it was un-parliamentary for him to liken the President to Satan.
Realising that he was cornered, and that the public was enjoying his mastering of the Queen’s language, Boko unleashed a bomb of a word that left many scratching their heads and wondering whether he had withdrawn the demon statement or not.
“He behaves like a Sophoclean tragedy; aloof, impeccable, pitiless. That is what I say. He behaves like Gods in a Sophoclean tragedy,” he said to the House and silence prevailed as he continued with his response.
Economic clusters
The leader of opposition mentioned numerous examples of world class clusters including financial centres in London, Hong Kong and New York; Hollywood film industry; Silicon Valley high tech agglomeration; Italian luxury leather fashion cluster; the Dutch flower industry. London has a population of eight million inhabitants, and services clients from the European Union member states which has a population going to over 300 million citizens, the equivalence of SADC. Hong Kong has just over seven million inhabitants, and it has British connections and the country is very rich.
It would have made more sense if Boko had tried hard to bring the dream closer to home in the SADC region and elaborated how the Botswana Financial Services Centre could have tap into the SADC market before it was merged with the Botswana Export Development and Investment Agency (BEDIA) to establish the Botswana Investment and Trade Centre. He could still say a lot about BITC strengths, weakness and opportunities.
There is also the Botswana Innovation Hub, which is in line with or will take the shape of the Silicon Valley, and the Leader of Opposition should have acknowledged the initiative and shared his suggestions on how BIH could benefit from the SADC region and beyond.
Health
The Leader of Opposition speech had shortcomings in stating the number of patients that have been referred to South African hospitals for specialised treatment, and how much the government has coughed out in medical bills. This would have given the nation a clue that perhaps there is need to invest more in specialised health services and training of more Batswana in such fields. For instance, how many of those specialists are there in our hospitals, how many should each hospital have, what is the shortfall, and how much may be needed to train Batswana in such fields. The two leaders still failed to account for Batswana doctors and specialists living abroad, who were sponsored by the government, how many have decided to come home in the last two years, and whether there are or there should be incentives to attract them back home. It is a fact that a Motswana doctor will care to save the life of a dying (Motswana) patient than an expatriate from Cuba, China, Democratic Republic of Congo or Uganda among others. There is less that connects an expatriate to a local than there is that connects a local to a local. Even communication is critical between a patient and a doctor and the language barrier could be the reason why some of our hospitals are death zones.
Despite the expansion of the Scottish Livingstone Hospital in Molepolole, Sekgoma Memorial Hospital in Serowe, and Mahalapye Hospital that have the state-of-the-art equipment, patients still wait or book for doctors’ appointment for two to three months. There are reports of patients going blind after undergoing surgery in some of these hospitals, whilst those with wrong diagnosis, and wrong prescription of medication are overwhelming and there are no institutions where aggrieved individuals can go to seek assistance, except going the expensive legal route. The Ministry of Health has consistently expressed concern at the increasing numbers of lifestyle diseases or conditions, the rise in kidney diseases and others, which should have specialists locally. What are the two leaders doing about this challenge?
This is information that the UDC should have in place all the time as a party waiting to rule from 2019. The UDC should state how it plans to bring home Batswana doctors and other health specialists when it takes over power, how it intends to execute that huge exercise and in what timeframe.
Movement in the region
Botswana is located in the centre of the SADC region, with thousands of tonnes of goods passing through our roads everyday, and thousands of people in transit to other parts of the continent. The Trans Kalahari and the A1 highways are some of the main roads that take this burden of taking goods to the region and therefore there should be some form of compensation. Whilst weigh bridges have been put in place, it seems there are truckers who are too clever to beat the system.
Statistics on job creation/loses
It is a known fact that the President has a policy of deporting indiscriminately, including people who have investments in the country and who have been here for more than two decades. Some have had their residence and work permits not renewed, meaning that they have to part ways with the country, their property, as well as their employees. Statistics Botswana should be in a position to have information on jobs created, and jobs lost every three months like it is the case in other countries.
Both leaders have not made an effort to take Statistics Botswana to task over its failure to provide these crucial numbers. There are other institutions such as the Bank of Botswana that should also be in a position to share these statistics, but they are seemingly not bothered, or our leaders have not engaged them.
How many people have lost jobs as result of deported investors?
Alcohol levy
The President boasted that the levy has raised over P2 billion but has not dissected or disclosed how the fund has been spending the money; whether its intended objective was achieving or not. The levy, which was imposed in 2008, immediately after the President ascended to power, has reportedly enriched some individuals since there are no accountability mechanisms with regards to how the funds are spent.
Safety and security
The Leader of Opposition failed to highlight one important trend that is going on in the Botswana Police Service where police stations have been instructed to make money and reach set targets. This has led to traffic police focusing on making money than any other thing.
They confiscate people’s vehicles causing serious inconveniences, and the application of the law or traffic regulations is not uniform because each police station has now set its own rules. This ‘policing business’ has the potential to tempt officers to take, or demand bribes, something, that will be very difficult to reverse in the future.
The UDC seems to be in possession of a lot of information about the military and should dig more information from other sectors of the government as we enter the New Year and looking forward to Khama’s last SONA.
The UDC leader should also undergo orientation to use simple language to pass his message to his intended audience. Nonetheless, it was refreshing to hear the view of the country’s number one contender for State House on the current President. The taxpayer might have to spend more millions to cleanse/rid the State House of ‘evil spirits’ if the UDC takes power.