During one of Cecil John Rhodes’ travels, he was found to be unusually quiet by his travel companions and they asked; “What is it that you are concerned about, is it Lobengula?” And he answered; “I am not worried about Lobengula, but my concern is on how I can take full control of this strategic belly called Bechuanaland which will determine my goal to take control of Matebeleland and reach Cairo.”
Last week I had a call from Captain Kealotswe, a retired officer from the BDF and he challenged me to write something for the paper regarding the economic opportunities that have been created by the crisis in South Africa. Regardless of his level of education, Kealotswe has that strategic mind and given the opportunity for higher education, he would be high up there in the echelons of political or technocratic leadership.
Our country has for too long been marginalised economically as stated by Monageng Mogalakwe in one of his academic essays and as Kealotswe reiterates the same. I would like to submit that it is time we as a nation break from this mould that has been created not by ourselves even though we have at times failed to believe in ourselves.
I hate to be found to be in the bunch of Africans who sit and do very little to change the predicament of their colonial past. It is time for Botswana to break from that mould as well.
Cecil Rhodes clearly had a plan to conquer Bechuanaland so that this vast expanse remain for so long in the hands of Britain. It is not by mistake that we were among the last few countries in Africa to become independent. The poverty mentality was inculcated into the minds of our ancestors in order to keep the population of the country docile and submissive.
Once Rhodes failed to achieve total control of Bechuanaland under his private company in 1895, the South Africans were equally getting themselves positioned to have total economic control over this strategic country to be later named Botswana. The creation of the Union of South Africa in 1910 came along with the Southern African Customs Union, this was a design for that country to have permanent economic oppression on its neighbours who were not under white rule.
It is the SACU arrangement that stole several industries in this country after South Africa gained independence in 1994. We saw a complete Hyundai Assembly Plant close in Gaborone and relocating in South Africa. Soon it was followed by Volvo assembly line and several other companies that came to establish business in Botswana as a response to the disinvestment call in South Africa.
The crisis in Kwa Zulu Natal is the second Chimurenga for Botswana. Foreign investors are obviously no longer going to have any confidence in that country. It is time for the government of Botswana to actively approach those investors to relocate in Botswana.
South Africa no longer offers economic security for the foreign and local investors. The alternative is found in Botswana where there is continued peace and tranquillity. It is these qualities that we need to trade off as a country and in that way get investors here to come and transform our economy. Even if our diamond mines unearth 3 000 carat diamonds every week, until we have industrialised as a country, we are going nowhere.
By now, our investment gurus should be all over Kwa Zulu Natal sniffing for those disgruntled investors and offering them a better alternative. Botswana does not only offer the peace as a bargaining chip for investors, the country is also geographically strategically positioned. Its a country with a small population yet surrounded by a host of consumers in neighbouring countries.
Setting up a production factory for anything in Botswana will benefit from the strategic advantage that this country offers. The newly opened Kazungua Bridge serves as the gateway to central Africa and offers endless opportunities for finished goods to reach their intended consumers in DRC and going as far as Uganda in East Africa.
In fact investors need to be drawn to Sowa Town where there is a soda ash mine and set up several plants that make use of the product from that mine. The ash leaves the mine to be made into finished goods in South Africa and a few weeks later the finished goods go past the same town to their consumers in Zambia and DRC.
With the opening of the railway line linking Kazungula and Sowa Town, the copper that goes to South Africa from the Copperbelt can now make a rendezvous at Sowa Town before returning to Zambia as electric copper wires and components. In fact we don’t need to wait for the railway line. The trucks are already bringing the copper slabs through Botswana going to create employment in South Africa.
The recruitment of disgruntled investors should not be the only model in place. Zambia and Botswana could still approach investors and financial institutions overseas for funding under the same model of the bridge and finance several factories in Sowa Town.
Botswana government must play an aggressive role when it comes to this issue. For too long we have wanted to remain with this “good boy” mentality and not grabbing opportunities that present themselves from our neighbours. That attitude has to end if we want to progress.
Remember what happened to the Zimbabwean farmers when they left that country after Mugabe’s land grab policy began. These farmers took their expensive farming equipment through Botswana fleeing to other countries and we never offered them refuge. The “good boy” mentality informed us then that we would be seen in bad light by our neighbours in Zimbabwe.
These farmers are now successfully doing their trade in countries such as Zambia, DRC, CAR, Cameroon and as far as Nigeria. Zambia’s agricultural sector has been revolutionised on account of those white farmers. This time around we have to go for the jugular vein in the words of Captain Kealotswe the military strategist.
We now need to wake up to the words of Rhodes and realise that this strategic belly now called Botswana has grown in significance militarily and economically. The old mentality that we had that we are a landlocked country and therefore there is not much we can achieve must be shed off like an old skin of an Africa rock python.
