For all intents and purposes, beneficiation and processing should begin to top our economic diversification agenda.
This is especially so given that our economic diversification efforts have over the past two or more decades failed to yield tangible results.
The mining sector still remains by far our primary economic driver. Diamonds continue to account as the single biggest contributor to our gross domestic product (GDP). It is also the country’s biggest foreign exchange earner. The non-mining sector contribution to the overall GDP is still too little, to say the least.
Our country is endowed with abundant minerals resources that if fully exploited, and allowing for beneficiation and processing, will no doubt solve our economic diversification woes.
It does not make economic sense for us to continue to exploit our mineral wealth and allow the processing into finished products to be done outside the country. By allowing the processing to be done outside our borders, we are literally exporting the many jobs that we should otherwise be creating for our own citizens.
Our failure to diversify the economy calls for an urgent change of mindset. The business as usual attitude will not take us anywhere.
It is not doing us any good when so many of our own people remain unemployed yet we continue to export jobs that we should be creating by way of beneficiation and processing.
It is embarrassing that with a population of as little as only two million people, our unemployment rate stands at a whopping 18 percent without any signs of abating anytime soon.
It is our firm conviction that with proper beneficiation and processing efforts, Botswana stands to create a lot of jobs for its unemployed people.
There is no reason why our copper and nickel as well gold are still being processed outside the country. More copper mines are being developed in the country and there is urgent need to process that copper here instead of processing it outside our borders and creating employment elsewhere.
The same goes for the meat industry. Botswana is one of the countries with the largest cattle herd in the world and there is absolutely no reason why after almost half a century of independence there are no meat processing plants in this country.
We are aware that the issue of economic diversification cannot be solved by government alone. The onus rests on all of us to ensure that we help government in its economic diversification efforts. The private sector ought to up its game.
Our education system should also change focus and produce enterprising graduates who are not only looking at the already bloated civil service for employment and the few private companies that have managed to stand the test of time and sustained themselves overtime.
Our graduates should be men and women of such enterprising acumen who are prepared to take risks and create industries that will in turn create jobs for their fellow countrymen.
Government red tape and bureaucracy also remains a big challenge that has to be tackled forthwith.
Investors have no business in being sent from pillar to post when they seek to do business in Botswana.
It is not only the government red tape and bureaucracy that need to be tackled expeditiously. Utility costs in Botswana still remain among the highest in the southern African region. This issue needs to be addressed urgently especially that a lot of strides have been made in terms of infrastructural developments.
Government in partnership with the private sector through the Botswana Confederation of Commerce, Industry and Manpower (BOCCIM) should converge and forge ways in which to make Botswana more business friendly instead of the current overreliance on political and economic stability as business development prerequisites.
Political and economic stability have served us well in the past but the liberation of the southern African region has brought more competition that we should braced for and beat to ensure that we still remain competitive in attracting new investments to our shores.
