It was his fifth SONA since he ascended to the presidency in 2018 but Masisi did not even dedicate one paragraph to address the country’s high unemployment rate in his long speech.
The wide-ranging speech that lasted nearly two hours, examined many pressing issues confronting the nation from Gender-Based Violence (GBV) to corruption.
One of the most dire being unemployment, however, somehow escaped his attention. In Masisi’s 60 pages long speech, he only mentions the word unemployment once.
Although he acknowledged that the people who are mostly affected by unemployment are the youth, Masisi was quick to put the blame on the COVID-19 pandemic, which he says “aggravated the afflictions of poverty, inequalities and unemployment”. He is the same man who promised to tackle the issue of unemployment during his inauguration as Botswana’s fifth president on April 1, 2018. “One of my top priorities as the President of this country will be to address the problem of unemployment, especially amongst the young people who constitute the majority of our population,” Masisi said at the time. Fast forward to now, many jobs were lost as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic and before that, a huge challenge of youth unemployment already existed. Currently, the youth make up 60% of the population of the country. Every year thousands of graduates join the ranks of the long-term unemployed who have lost their economic lifeline and had never worked a day in their life.
The latest data available indicated that Botswana had a 26% unemployment rate. COVID-19 has also exacerbated the divide between those who are employed and those who are unemployed.
Masisi's failure to address the elephant in the room gave the opposition more ammunition to critique his administration and the SONA speech. In a post SONA interview, the Leader of Opposition (LoO) Dithapelo Keorapetse said Masisi is out of touch with reality. “The President ought to have informed the nation that we have just emerged from COVID-19 and this is the number of jobs that were lost and the number of jobs that he has created. He ought to have revealed the number of jobs when he took over in 2018 and where we are now,” he highlighted.
The Selebi-Phikwe West Member of Parliament (MP) also said what Masisi said was self-accolades and updates on government programmes and projects. Keorapetse said what was painful is that Masisi failed to acknowledge the major challenges of unemployment, under employment and poverty. He said Botswana should not be in the top 10 of unemployment rates in the world. “We rank among the worst when it comes to unemployment,” he emphasised.
Keorapetse said the SONA is a meaningless November ritual where the President comes to praise himself. He said Masisi fails to acknowledge actual challenges that Batswana have and further fails to offer long time policies and alternatives. “The president has failed to capture the issues that affect this country. One of the biggest problems in this country is unemployment and he didn’t even say how he will address the issue. He has failed to say how we will deal with the issue of adding value to our natural resources.
You cannot say let there be light and there shall be light as it is stated in the Bible.
You have to present a programme to the country and give hope to those who are looking for jobs. “Masisi has dismally failed today,” Botswana Congress Party president Dumelang Saleshando said in an interview after the SONA. Leader of the minority party in Parliament, Wynter Mmolotsi also had something to say about Masisi’s failure to address the high rate of unemployment.
He said some of the youth graduates in Botswana have been unemployed for more than a decade and are now nearing retirement age. “For me this is an emergency that the President should tackle. Tertiary institutions are producing graduates every year but the government is not doing anything about creation of jobs. When they campaigned for the election they mentioned that they will create jobs for Batswana but today they are saying that they are creating conducive environment for the private sector to create jobs,” Mmolotsi added.
The Francistown South legislator said he was disappointed because that is not what he expected from Masisi. For his part, Minister of Youth, Gender, Sport and Culture Tumiso Rakgare begged to differ indicating that he was impressed with the President’s address.
He said people should not forget that COVID-19 pandemic disrupted most of the economies around the world. “The President’s report showed that there are some things we should be happy for as Batswana. Our issue is that we should see clearly how the government is trying their best in creating employment,” Rakgare further commented.
