Whilst previous ministers had touched on much of the same issues, this time it felt as if the issues were getting the due attention they deserve. It felt like the ministry and minister had finally listened to a lot of the complaints Batswana have about the budget and the way it is presented. I could not tell if this was a result of there being a new minister at the ministry or the shackles of NDP11 being shaken off and the ministry embracing the possibilities that come with the conceptualisation of a new national development plan. Or maybe the effects of the Reset Agenda being felt? Whatever the reason, this budget speech felt like it was a step in the right direction.
As I have bemoaned in the past, the typical response to a problem in Botswana has been to throw money at it. As one consultant said this week, we focus too much on resources rather than resourcefulness i.e finding innovative ways to do a lot with a little. Botswana has been plagued by this inclination over the past 30 years. Because we were 'rich' we didn’t have to plan very well. We didn’t have to think about return on investment for projects, we could just focus on political motivations and actions. We used no real investment criteria on where to place a school/road/clinic and didn’t care too much to manage its costs. We could take reckless political decisions to award salary hikes just before election years to buy them (what does it say about our political maturity and literacy? That this still works?) and the fiscal position of the country would still prosper. The phase of abundant resources ended in 2008 but in the 14 years since then, we have not been able to re-adjust and transform into a country of resourcefulness. This speech finally felt like there are serious conversations now being had to correct that.
We finally heard about improved processes for determining which projects get onto the budget by including feasibility studies to determine the return on investment, rationalisation of ministries and state-owned enterprises is finally happening and accountability structures for the performance of ministries and accounting officers were also alluded to.
For the first time, it also feels like the issue of reducing the government wage bill is being taken seriously. The Reset Agenda felt like it was kicking in. It was also a relief to finally hear that Public Private Partnerships (PPP), which have been talked about for 20 years, were finally being executed with the eight solar projects around the country. This is the textbook case of resourcefulness from government. Identify a project, package it for the private sector, allow them to own it and operate it and manage their performance while paying a 'rental' fee rather than the big outlay of building yourself. For the same P20 million rather than building one school, you can build 20 and pay a rental of P1 million a year. All of these (and many other examples) are to be applauded.
That said, some worrying issues still exist. Our budget is still too heavy on recurrent expenditure (primarily salaries), which chokes our ability to do productive transformative work. This is problematic because even though government waxes lyrical about focussing its attention on particular industries like tourism, manufacturing, agriculture etc, the resource allocation does not reflect that seriousness (I suspect not because they don’t want to but because unfortunately, they have committed themselves to other recurrent expenditure, primarily salaries). Teachers, nurses and other civil servants are having to work in deteriorating conditions that are not resourced or maintained with minimal training because most ministries have to commit 80% of their money to pay salaries. So the people are employed, paid at the end of the month but aren’t resourced well enough to perform and hence delivery of services is atrocious. A vicious cycle that reasonably can only be solved by reducing the wage bill (read retrenchment) and hopefully transforming the delivery of services using more cost-efficient technologies.
Other glaringly worrying issues included that the minister seemed to shy away from talking about much focussed on issues such as how to tackle employment going forward or even how to transform the country into a private sector-led economy with a large and empowered small and medium enterprise sector. Whilst the Reset Agenda speaks to value chain development, no real mention of these existed in her speech. No plan was announced for youth empowerment, especially in the creative sector (which is the main victim of political rhetoric with no tangible plan). Most worrying was the omission of citizen economic empowerment after the Economic Inclusion Act was passed last year. All of these are reflected in the Reset Agenda and they all tie together but they received no real attention. It almost feels as if Botswana’s core challenges of unemployment, inequality and lack of opportunities were ignored or we do not have a plan. (I’m not sure which is worse between the two).
So in conclusion, I was made cautiously optimistic by the tone set by minister Serame in her speech. The end of NDP11 does provide an excellent time to reassess our way of working and make some tough decisions for the long term sake of this country and I hope we embrace this opportunity.
It did finally feel like progress but unfortunately, there were some glaring omissions and I do hope we are willing to have the tough conversations on accountability as a government and focus on how to convert to being resourceful as a country so that we improve service delivery, employment, inequality and in turn, general happiness in the country, whilst using fewer resources.
I live in hope. Cautiously.
*Mphoeng is a director at MP Consultants, a local citizen-owned corporate finance, economics and business consultancy. Previously, he worked for the University of Botswana as a Lecturer in Accounting and Finance, Botswana Investment Fund Management (BIFM), Standard Chartered Bank and Bank of Botswana.
