Members of Parliament (MPs) in Botswana are off the mark when it comes to trust. These were the findings of pan-African, non-partisan survey research network – Afrobarometer which noted that attitudes to parliamentarians have hardened, with over two fifths of Batswana saying that they do not trust MPs.
The Afrobarometer SDG Scorecard provides citizens’ perspectives that can be compared to official UN indicators tracking progress on 12 of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals. The survey highlights that Botswana is not performing well on SGD 16: Peace, justice and strong institutions. SDG 16 aims to promote peaceful and inclusive societies for sustainable development, provide access to justice for all and build effective, accountable and inclusive institutions at all levels.
The survey notes that trust in MPs has dropped from a high of 67% in 2008 to 40% in 2019. Meanwhile trust in courts of law has seen a rapid decline from 69% in 2014, to 67% in 2019 to 65% in 2019.
The report also notes that Botswana’s performance when it comes to reducing perceived corruption in police, judiciary, and Parliament worsened by more than 3 percentage points and “doing worse”. The survey also found out that the number of Batswana who believe that MPs are corrupt increased from 18% in 2012, to 26% in 2014, to 28% in 2017 and then 32% in 2019. Similarly the number of Batswana who believe that the police are corrupt increased from 25% in 2012, to 30% in 2014, to 34% in 2017 and then 39% in 2019. Meanwhile the percentage of people who paid bribes for public services (schools, health clinic, identity documents, and police) increased from 6% in 2017 to 8% in 2019.
The newly developed Afrobarometer SDG Scorecard “highlight citizens’ experiences and evaluations of their country’s performance on democracy and governance, poverty, health, education, energy supply, water and sanitation, inequality, gender equity, and other priorities reflected in 12 of the 17 SDGs. These citizen assessments can be compared to official UN tracking indicators. They present both summary assessments for each SDG – via blue, green, yellow, and red “stoplights” – as well as the data behind these assessments.”
