It is now common knowledge that the government prohibited imports of tomatoes and other vegetables at the beginning of the year. Those who expressed doubts about the wisdom of such a decision and therefore sought evidence of local famers’ ability and/or readiness to meet demand were and are still being disparaged. They are routinely demonised as prophets of doom whose only interest is to wish misery on citizen horticultural farmers and entrepreneurs. To express doubt is to attract accusations of being anti citizen even if you are a citizen yourself!
In dealing with this case therefore, no harm is caused by turning to the scripture where we are told that ‘By their fruits you shall know them. A good tree cannot bring forth evil fruit, neither can an evil tree bring forth good fruit”’. And on the basis of the analogy of the biblical fruit, it is not going well so far. This past week alone, I checked in at two major retailers in search of vegetables or tomatoes to be specific. On both occasions, I came back empty-headed and it is not unreasonable to assume that other shoppers also experience the same ordeal.
Instead of acknowledging its policy errors, the government is ostensibly digging in, has become ultra-defensive and is almost doubling down on those who dissent from the decision. And there are quite a few such dissenters. You have hawkers, who all of a sudden find their livelihoods threatened. You also have to factor in small scale cross border traders who used to haul vegetables from South Africa for sale to hawkers. Just like hawkers, the rug has been pulled from under their feet. Meanwhile the powers-that-be are not in the mood to even consider that they were wrong and perhaps change course. And to add salt to injury, the government has non- chalantly, if you like, asked affected small scale traders to go out and look for alternative sources of livelihoods. It’s akin to asking them to go jump into Gaborone Dam
So we now have a situation whereby the supply of tomatoes fails to meet demand. It might be a vegetable fiasco but what it shows is that there is such a thing as government failure. We see it in other sectors. We have poor education outcomes but the default is to inject more money in public schools even though results continue to deteriorate. The same phenomenon can be seen if you move across to the health sector. If you can afford to avoid the public health, you definitely do. Not one voluntarily checks in a public hospital when they have the option of a private medical care. And what do we see as the solution? More money into public hospitals. There is never a consideration to privatise their operations.
But back to vegetables where the government plan is to correct what they incorrectly like to call market failure. The fact of the matter however is that there is so much that government even with the best intentions doesn’t and cannot know. We have to remember that every minute, businesses and consumers make millions of decisions and government has no way of processing these decisions to influence production patterns of many goods and services including tomatoes. It is all guesswork which makes it difficult for the government to make economic calculation.
The government and its policy makers should pause and assess the impact of its regulations on other interested parties in the food chain and not just a small and loud group of horticultural farmers. And the largest group among interested parties is consumers. I know that is not how government does business. They never want to admit mistakes in public and would rather push ahead rather than lose face.
We get that. However the experience of one time US senator George McGovern is teachable. Upon leaving the US senate, he bought a hotel and soon found himself choking under overregulation and red tape. His hotel business folded. McGovern then confessed that had he known the harm of overregulation while still in the Senate, he would not have supported it.
