The public discomfort of the last few days necessitated by a spy law that had no oversight nor safe-guards and no public protections could very easily have been avoided.
One has no option but to sympathise with Kagiso Mmusi, the minister responsible for the judiciary who has become the fall guy.
He has been thrown under a bus.
Very much like it was the case with minister Kabo Morwaeng when he was dragged clueless and unprepared to defend the purchase of Tautona Lodge.
In the end he resembled a helpless animal being dragged to the knackers.
That must be how Minister Mmusi is feeling this week. He is forced to defend a law he neither likes, understands nor believes in.
The law that Minister Mmusi brought before parliament was intended to give unassailable powers to the security agencies.
It was not much different to appointing them judge, jury and executioners in their own case.
Different sectors of the public were rightly horrified.
The law was bad through and through – from the beginning to the end – including the manner with which it was brought before parliament, which was under near surreptitious urgency certificate.
The law was not acceptable – neither technically nor politically.
The backbenches were abhorred. The opposition was up in arms. Behind the scenes a portion of cabinet were beaming with naughty smiles, unable to grasp the wisdom of such unforced own goal.
The idea that the country needed such a blanket law shorn of all oversight in order to fight money laundering and other modern day crimes like terrorism financing was of course all cooked up.
To their credit, after a few days government climbed down and came up with amendments that made the Bill look more respectable.
By that time irreparable reputational damage to the country and leader had been done.
The end result however is that events that followed blindsided the president and has now been left weakened and wounded.
Those in power at any given time in Botswana like to pretend the country has any Separation of powers.
They know this is not true. It is phony.
Those who drafted the current constitution badly failed to create enough tensions between the judiciary, the legislature and the executive.
Today it is worse – the worst it has ever been. The executive has swallowed the legislature and to everyone’s surprise the judiciary has today voluntarily allowed itself to be a cheerleader to the executive too.
Inflation is way above the Bank of Botswana target.
Real income has substantially declined.
Electricity and fuel are too expensive even for working people.
In fact the two constitute by far the biggest squeeze today.
And a warning is out that electricity is set to increase yet again in the near future.
This week on one local radio station I heard Minister Lefhoko Moagi say Botswana’s energy prices are the lowest in the region.
That may well be true. But it will be no consolation to a household that is so squeezed that it is no longer able make ends meet, let alone buy electricity.
Many households including those with a working mother and a working father are now living under declining real incomes.
The situation is worse for unemployed father and/or mother.
And even more terrible for households led by single mothers.
These are bread and butter issues Botswana government should address.
High prices and inflation are not the only things biting.
Batswana are badly indebted.
For those lucky to be still working, a bigger proportion of incomes is tied to servicing debt.
Many people have take-home salaries as low as fifty pula, with the bulk going to commercial banks and loan sharks.
Following a wholesale increase in a raft of taxes and levies including those charged on services rendered to the public by government departments, real post tax labour incomes too has taken a substantial knock.
The economy is yet to fully recover from the disorientating effects of Covid-19.
Government debt is also on the rise.
It has not as yet reached a statutory determined ceiling.
But there is no doubt that post-covid the economy will be locked in endless struggles as money goes towards servicing government debt.
Botswana government savings have been badly decimated.
On Monday the Minister of Finance will read her budget speech.
More interesting will be to listen to how she plans to plug the deficit black hole that has been growing on account of sluggish growth, reckless and populist spending.
We know that government’s ability to maneuver has been buffeted from all sides.
Batswana should demand their government to address cost of living issues and stop coming up with silly laws that take away civil liberties not least because once lost, restoring these liberties will be totally impossible.
Covid-19 has left a majority of households in poverty.
Many of these families are now unable to buy basic food stuffs.
Many more are out of work.
And recovery is for many of them people neither fast nor strong enough.
And it is not a laughing matter.
Botswana government has to start taking Batswana seriously.
The president is a profligate promise maker.
He never cares about the implications of the promises he makes – probably because for a greater time he does not intend to keep them.
And because of that he never cares to check how realistic his promises sound or how deliverable they are in real life.
In the end it does not seem to bother him when his promises turn out to be empty ones.
The president knows so well that the economy is not doing well and that based on that reality there is not much new money the economy can churn out, yet he is too eager to speak big and make promises that are seldom linked to reality on the ground.
In his typical bombast and hyperbole – and now we know, bluster too, a lot has been promised and never costed.
The Ministry of Finance has been forced to recoil into silence, afraid to speak hard economics.
They are scared to attract the ire of the president.
This is because the president shuns realism.
Total loss of credibility is an adventure this government can ill afford.
Yet the Spy Bill that as initially presented was designed just to achieve that.
