The credibility of any political party that governs or seeks to govern any country is measured by its capacity to apply credible and relevant ideas in governing its people with a sole aim of delivering them from harsh living conditions of poverty and hunger.
In our case, with our country highly praised as a rich country yet with the majority of its people literally having no food to nourish their bodies as a result of BDP’s irrelevant governing style, we the BCP youth league can safely and confidently stress that the ruling BDP is bankrupt of ideas to govern this country.
Before revealing in facts that the BDP is bankrupt of ideas, we the BCP youth league first took a look at the current BDP leadership’s characteristics and leadership styles and probably their past achievements as they are the ones at the moment tasked with the role of providing leadership of applying relevant ideas to deliver our people from poverty and hunger through the 2004 general elections.
In doing this, we looked at only the fundamental leadership of the BDP which is made up of notably three individuals being the country’s President Lieutenant General Ian Khama, the Vice President Lieutenant General Mompati Merafhe and lastly the BDP Secretary General Mr Jacob Nkate. Looking at these three BDP’s fundamental leadership (Khama-Merafhe-Nkate) and taking into consideration their leadership’s past demonstrations, leadership styles and probably their past and recent actions in their designated areas of responsibility, one will not struggle to agree that truly the current BDP is not only deeply bankrupt of ideas but also deeply broke of credible leadership.
The Vice President Mompati Merafhe is reported in Echo and other local newspapers having angrily declared at the launch of Mahalapye East BDP candidates that “opposition-BCP should shut up” and that “ga motho are we are bankrupt of ideas wa bo a re tlhapatsa, ya bo ele jealous, we are a government full of ideas”. We the BCP youth league are extremely disappointed at the Vice President’s use of vulgar language, especially considering the fact that at 74 years old and holding the second highest post of vice presidency, we think that he is old enough to understand that the use of vulgar language such as “shut up” should be avoided against other people, no matter how hateful he might be to those people. Though we might pardon Vice President Merafhe’s sometimes boisterous use of vulgar language perhaps because at 74 years old, aging might be taking its toll in a bad way that turns him into an aggressive grand-pa, we the BCP youth league, however, do not approve of egotistical declarations that are not backed by any tangible evidence of improved lives of our people. The Vice President must therefore not obstinately cast that the “BDP is full of ideas to govern this country.”
Perhaps we should agree with the Vice President that they as the BDP have many “ideas” to govern this country but then we should seek to understand what kind or what ideas is he so sternly talking about? All the ideas that we know of from the current BDP leadership which the Vice President is talking about are namely namola leuba, which last week backfired right into BDP government’s face when multitudes of its workers revolted against the slavery treatment they have been subjected to. They all marched in demonstrations against not being paid their promised wages after almost three months of hard labour and this is a sign of one failed idea to create employment by the BDP.
There is also the BDP’s graduates’ internship program meant to employ degree holders at a slavery pay of P1 800 per month after almost 20 years of one’s academic brilliance. The creation of graduates’ internship scheme by the BDP government is a clear sign that contrary to the Vice President’s contention that the BDP is full of ideas, the BDP is dead blank with ideas of stimulating Botswana ‘s economy to create jobs for a population of less than 1.8 million. Realizing that the BDP government can no longer cope with the increasing annual rate of unemployed graduates, the BDP government only had an idea of using the “global financial crisis” as a scapegoat yet sneakily avoiding to state that the BDP government had no ideas to use diamonds revenues to diversify the economy to create more jobs. The BCP youth league’s position is that the BDP must not hide behind “global financial crisis” and that Botswana ‘s economy must be diversified not only in paper like the BDP is doing but rather in practice.
BCP youth league wonders what ideas is the Vice President Merafhe referring to because Batswana are currently hard hit by the soaring high food prices as a result of BDP government having had no idea of how to make Botswana produce its own food instead of relying on South African produce. Over the years since independence, the BDP government’s only idea was to invent fruitless same agricultural schemes with their names frequently changed but same approach where Batswana ends up not benefiting anything from them. The latest of these schemes being the “ISPAAD” which was invented with objectives peddled as to help Botswana become self sufficient in producing its own food and help cushion Batswana against the high rate of imported South African food. As of now, with this scheme highly praised last year with tractors promised in the name of President Khama, the question is where are the results? The BCP believes in increased public investment in agriculture, especially in research and that agricultural research should be the principal tool to producing evidence-based policies and practices instead of misdirected directives.
To further indicate that the BDP has no ideas to govern this country, the BDP failed to bring up their own manifesto for the 2009 general elections but rather decided to copy the Vision 2016 as it is with the only change being that of the cover page and the BDP symbols added unto it. In their 2009 elections “manifesto”, the BDP further illustrated that they have no ideas of how to improve the lives of the youth as there is nowhere they talked about the youth to the extent that they did not even mention the word “youth” in their manifesto.
Clearly, the BDP is failing the people of this country because the only ideas that they have is to turn Botswana ‘s society into a violent society due to their undemocratic rule and militaristic attack at Batswana’s civil liberties. The only ideas that the BDP has is to kill our democracy and undermine all the democratic institutions like parliament, the judiciary and the ombudsman while intimidating political party activists and anyone dissenting against them.
The Vice President is reported as having outlined some of the BDP’s present policies and programs at the BDP candidate’s launch. The only thing that we can say about the BDP policies is that many of them are made in such a way that they make life difficult for Batswana. Of the example is the BDP’s education policy where the BDP believes in forced schools fees, reduced number of tertiary students, the stopping of tertiary student’s sponsorships and the recent cutting of tertiary student’s allowances by P500 pula, while the BDP pursues programs to fund Zimbabwe with a huge sum of P 500 million. The BDP brought many economic empowerment schemes such as CEDA schemes, out of school youth grant, young farmers fund and others which are all difficult to access by Batswana. We currently have many Batswana with no land to build their homes due to the BDP’s selfish land distribution policy where thousands of Batswana have been in the waiting list for over ten years now.
With the current unending multiple problems of high rate of unemployment, poverty and hunger and poor health service delivery bedeviling Batswana, Vice President Merafhe is being hypocritical by contending that the BDP is full of ideas to govern this country. With the Vice President’s continued attack and false accusation on us the BCP that we are “incubators of hatred”, we the BCP youth league dismiss that view and stress that the Vice President is talking nothing else but “crap”. The BDP is bankrupt of ideas.
Thato Osupile
Secretary General
BCP Youth League
