As a country we need to clearly spell out to the world just what it is that we stand for.
This does not only apply to the values for which we stand, but also to what kind of an economy we want to build for ourselves.
Our Immigration Policy is sending out mixed signals.
While publicly we tell the world that we are open for global business, our actions and behavior at home tell a different story.
We are behaving like we are still trapped in a cold war era ÔÇô not opening up and embracing the world.
We are behaving like a people who are happy to recoil into a shell.
As a small economy, with a small population that is counter-productive.
We need to look outside.
Long before this Immigration Policy was in full steam, some countries had a reason to believe that Batswana were not only arrogant and aloof, but also xenophobic.
During those days, there was not enough evidence for detractors to draw on.
Today our Immigration Policy, which turns away almost on a daily basis thousands of people willing to come and spend their money here.
Our tourism is the latest victim of our rigid Immigration Policy.
Today’s international tourism is inextricably linked to entertainment.
Other than that the world considers us as hostile as to be xenophobic, there is also the reality of our policies that we have to contend with.
The Alcohol Levy has to be reviewed as should be the operating hours of night clubs and related outlets.
As a nation, not just Government we need to reflect and ask ourselves if our Immigration Policy is in line with modern times.
We are living in an increasingly dangerous world.
Terrorism seems to be occupying the minds of ordinary people on a daily basis.
This puts an added strain on every government to be cautious on who they can welcome within their borders.
But in a similar way, it is important that we balance our security considerations with our economic imperatives.
Today’s world is economically much more competitive than it was, say five years ago.
This means that we must be awake of the fact that we are competing with the rest of the world for investors who are fewer, increasingly choosy and much more demanding than they have ever been.
Our Immigration Policy which seems to have natural instincts to tell people who have made Botswana their home for years that they are no longer welcome is even by today’s security considers not just way over the top but abominable.
Faced with the security and economic challenges of today, our Immigration Policy needs to use our past strengths as basis for our competitive edge ÔÇô for today and for the future.
This means showing an openness and readiness to welcome outsiders who come here to bring skills but also investment opportunities.
Our nationalist instincts which tell us that every foreigner who is here is coming to take a job are wrong.
While Botswana Government needs to be credited for educating citizens over the years, we have to be honest in accepting that our economy needs skills which do not exist among our people.
Those skills we can get from the international market, but only if we accept outsiders into our shores.
At the moment our Immigration Policy to close out those skills is creating an economic conundrum which we can ill afford given that our economy is no longer as strong as it was compared to say the 1990s.
There is no question that economically, our country is in a kind of danger that we have not have had to go through since independence.
But thankfully, compared to pre-independence, today we have a strong base with which we can use to overcome the hurdles.
If our forefathers could make it from nothing, then we have no reason not to make it when we have such a strong foundation on which to stand in our economic fight back.
But then for fight back to succeed, we need to be flexible enough to accept that such stringent policies such as our Immigration Policy today are doing more harm than good.
