It is not clear if the Government policy to reserve certain businesses strictly for citizens is still in place.
Right from the capital city centre to the most rural corners of our country, such businesses as initially listed as preserved for citizens have fallen into the hands of expatriates.
A common refrain, which bears some truth, is that it is citizens who are often culprits. They either rent out or sell licenses to these expatriates.
Admittedly, enforcing such a policy was always going to be problematic.
Enforcing it under the prevailing hard economic times is no doubt no longer against a priority of any government department.
But it is important to point out that leaving such businesses like hawking, bottle stores, bars, butcheries to fall into the hands of so-called foreign investors has serious policy difficulties that Botswana will still have to deal with at a later stage.
The immediate result of it is that Batswana get crowded out because one of the key objectives of the reservation policy was to create a climate where citizens would be groomed under a set of business friendly rules with minimalist competition that applies elsewhere.
The hope was that the owners of these small businesses would gradually graduate into the other free-forÔÇôall sectors where competition is often cutthroat.
This was an admission on the part of government that Batswana lacked a business culture often found in other countries.
Which is why the death of reservation policy is by itself an event that has to be mourned.
More annoying however is that instead of taking advantage of the opportunity provided by government, Batswana themselves abused the policies, culminating in them being pushed out because the initial purposes were no longer being served.
One way or another Batswana have to be brought into business.
The circumstances have changed. And it is only natural that the policies that were meant to help Batswana crawl into business also have to change.
There is hope in government that the latest initiative, the Economic Diversification Drive, will succeed where many other past policies have not been as successful.
We share that optimism.
We are however remain troubled by the subdued marketing of the EDD by government so as to interest citizens.
Leaving behind so many of our people is problematic.
The most obvious difficult thing about this is that it undermines the long term policy of economic diversification.
It also undermines another key policy imperative of citizen economic empowerment.
Instead it creates widespread poverty, which translates into large scale resentment, which will in future morph into unmanageable incidents of violence.
