I am currently reading a book titled “Botswana National Airways” authored by the pair of Jonathan Laverick and Bruce Morgan. It is with much irony that I started reading the book this week on my way to Francistown as I travelled by bus. I recommend this book to anyone who has a liking to history.
The matter of aviation which the book deals with is well researched and upon reading the first few chapters, I realised that there was so much that the two authors reveal about the history of this country. The problem with the book is that they have heaped up the Khama family with just too much praise unnecessarily.
The book has so much praise for Khama III, Seretse Khama and ultimately Ian Khama, the last king of the Khama Dynasty. As usual, Tshekedi Khama is vilified here as he is referred to as someone with “instinctive racism” and this was in regard to the regent’s response to Seretse’s marriage to Ruth. Tshekedi was the best thing that ever happened to Bechuanaland, the best man standing in the Khama Dynasty.
But this book exhumes very interesting aspects of our history and particularly history around issues of aviation. The first airstrip or aerodrome built in Botswana was in Palapye in 1920. And it was on the same year that the Serowe one was constructed by the people themselves under the supervision of Khama III. Amazingly, the British royals have come to land here in Serowe during the official opening of Sekgoma II Memorial Hospital.
Getting to Francistown, the town became a central air logistics centre in the colonial era. Besides the centre being ideally positioned between Salisbury and Cape Town, this town equally became the link between South Africa and central Africa. Congo was beginning to mine its minerals back in the 1950s and there was a huge demand for air traffic between the more established mines of the Witwatersrand and Elizabethville as the city of Lubumbashi was called back in the day.
The biggest business for Francistown came from a company known as WENELA. Until the early 1980s, migrant labour was a key business in this part of the world and their transportation to the mines was mainly done by rail and air transport. Francistown had both and the business was good. One of WENELA’s competitors in the country was NRC (Native Recruitment Corporation) which mainly plied for miners in the southern part of the country. NRC had a fleet of buses to ferry their recruits to the rail line while WENELA had a fleet of aircraft that took the miners straight to Johannesburg. So the later mode of transport was more efficient and the company had an edge in the labour recruitment industry.
Francistown still remains ideally positioned as the best logistical location in the country. With a recently revamped airport raised to international status and a railway and road network, the place must get going as a logistics hub. The newly opened Kazungula Bridge has phenomenally given Francistown an edge as a logistics centre. The days of the pontoon are over and the waiting at the border has been reduced from four days to four hours.
It has not only become faster to use this route, but it has become cheaper and safer for transport operators as the route is shorter and has no risk to hijackings. Even though the role of Francistown as an aviation hub has been reduced due to several factors, the opportunities around rail and road have been multiplied several times over.
But the government of Botswana as usual is suffering from its old disease of procrastination. By the time the bridge construction started in Kazungula, the railway project to link the bridge and the railhead at Sua Pan should have also commenced. Furthermore, the building of a large dry port or logistics centre should have commenced in Francistown. It was a brilliant idea for the planners to have added a rail component into the bridge; now the trains must start rolling.
The copper plates are still coming from the Copperbelt in Zambia and from Lubumbashi taking the route that passes through Francistown. The city council should make Francistown a desirable stopover by providing a state of the art truck stop. The drivers should be given free warm showers and a subsidised breakfast if they refuel their trucks here.
Currently there is very little the country is benefitting from this traffic. These are long haul trucks that can travel all the way from the Copperbelt to Johannesburg without refuelling. But if they are arm twisted to refuel each way, that will bring money into the city and as well as the much needed jobs.
Government must come to the understanding that for Francistown to regain its past glory as a logistics nerve centre, infrastructure must be brought to internationally acceptable levels. The road leading to Maun from Francistown is currently a total disaster. I used this road a month ago and it was a journey of horror.
To recreate Francistown as a logistics hub that it once was will need a big investment from both government and the private sector. But it is the government that has to lead the way and attract the necessary private investment. It begins with putting the right infrastructure in place and road and rail are key in that development.
It is irresponsible for government to allow the collapse of infrastructure like it is the case with the Francistown-Maun road. In short, there is no road that links Francistown to the Angolan boarder. This is another country that can bring in a lot of business to Francistown if the road leading to Mohembo border post can be rehabilitated.
The way to Angola by rail is a round trip from Johannesburg via Windhoek to Rundu. Like the Trans Kgalagadi Road, a rail link with Francistown to Angola via Shakawe could become a logistics and economic game changer for Botswana.
