An accelerated development programme that the UDC president, Duma Boko, once described as a grand scheme to “loot” the national treasury scrapped by with a mediocre score of 51 percent. However, in what appeared to be a cleverly crafted response to a parliamentary question, the Assistant Minister for State President, Meshack Mthimkhulu, creatively reworked the success rate figure to 65.6 percent.
The programme in question is the Economic Stimulus Package which former President Ian Khama implemented in November 2015. Bobonong MP, Taolo Lucas, had asked Mthimkhulu to state the current state of the programme, if it has been evaluated and if so, to state the major findings; if it has achieved the objectives for which it was created; and indicate the number of incomplete ESP projects to date and the reasons why they are incomplete.
By way of background, the minister said that ESP, which was implemented between 2016 and 2019, was a strategic response to effects of the 2009 global economic recession of which had stalled the national economy. Its main objectives were to stimulate economic growth, accelerate job creation and promote economic diversification. The programme was implemented through clearing the infrastructure backlog in primary schools, road construction, commercialisation and integration of the agricultural sector, tourism, establishment of special economic zones to stimulate manufacturing, economic diversification drive and accelerated land servicing.
All told, 7520 projects were planned for and 5914 (78.6 percent) were awarded. Of the latter, 3879 (65.6 percent) had been successfully completed when the programme ended on March 31, 2019. At this point, Khama had stepped down on April 1, 2018 and had been replaced by his vice president, Mokgweetsi Masisi. A total of 2035 projects (representing 27 percent of the total number of planned projects) were at various stages of completion while 1611 projects (representing 21 percent) hadn’t started. Possibly adjudging the low percentages to reflect badly on the government, Mthimkhulu (or the civil servants who provided the response) confined himself to the higher percentages, namely 78.6 percent for awarded tenders and 65.6 percent for completed projects. Even then, the latter figure is deceptive because it refers only to projects that were completed from those whose tenders were awarded – not to those that were completed from the 7520 projects that were planned for. The latter figure yields an uninspiring 51 percent.
Mthimkhulu told the house that even though ESP has “technically ended”, ongoing projects are being implemented as part of NDP 11 and that those that haven’t started are being “reprioritised … consistent with available resources.” On the basis of the foregoing, the minister said that he couldn’t single out which projects were incomplete since they had been “integrated into the normal planning process.”
However, what Lucas said when he asked a supplementary question contradicted what Mthimkhulu had stated with regard to incomplete projects. Upon enquiring about such projects in his constituency, Lucas said that he learnt that “nobody seems to be responsible for their completion.” The MP added that he has been told that “ESP was a Gaborone thing – ask the people in Gaborone.” The minister’s response was that with the projects having been integrated into the normal planning process, the relevant ministries automatically assumed responsibility for incomplete projects.
Missing from both the question and answer was a very important, if controversial detail about how ESP was crafted. The capital-intensive programme was started too close to the tail end of the 2015/16 financial year. This subverted a norm in terms of which the public spending cycle starts on April 1 and ends on March 31. Two other norms were subverted: contrary to the explicit dictates of the law, the Office of the President usurped the roles of the Public Procurement and Asset Disposal Board in the awarding of government tenders and that of the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development in the disbursement of public funds for the projects. OP’s insinuation of itself into these processes may have muddied up established supervisory authority over projects and resulted in a situation where ESP came to seen as a “Gaborone thing.”
There was also the question of why ESP was implemented at all and why it had to be implemented in an eyebrow-raising manner. Then able to criticise Khama, Duma Boko, who was Leader of the Opposition and Gaborone Bonnington North MP at the time, described the programme as a “grand scheme to loot” the national treasury during a parliamentary debate.
“ESP tenders are awarded at Masisi’s office,” Boko added that same year (2016) when addressing a political rally in Ramotswa. “Even the members of the ruling Botswana Democratic Party are not happy about it.”
Another opposition leader, Ndaba Gaolathe, also raised questions about both the purpose and effectiveness of the programme. Almost a year after ESP’s introduction, Ndaba, then Gaborone Bonnington South MP, told Sunday Standard that there was no sign that the programme had stimulated the economy.
“Economic growth rates remain low and unemployment remains high. If there is any improvement, it is marginal, even on the basis of official figures. There are no major national infrastructure projects nor is there any significant breakthrough worth mentioning in any sector of the economy. On the contrary, some sectors are being strained by recent economic shocks occasioned by closures of BCL and other mines in recent times,” he said.
BCL Limited, a copper/nickel mine which was the lifeblood of not just Selebi Phikwe but an entire region, had had to shut down on account of severe depression in the commodities market.
Gaolathe proposed that far from stimulating the economy, ESP may have been designed to avert a possible recession. He also questioned the secrecy around the amount of money that had been allocated for the programme, noting that effort to close that information gap wasn’t successful in that regard: “No one knows its quantum. A question was put in Parliament about the quantum of ESP and there is still no answer around the quantum, duration or desired outcomes of the so-called ESP. This makes it all the more difficult to assess its impact, positive or negative.”
Corruption was alleged in the disbursement of ESP money and only eight months after the programme was introduced, the Directorate on Corruption and Economic Crime (DCEC) launched an extensive investigation into the award of its tenders. Minutes of a closed-door meeting between the Botswana Corruption Curbing Task Force and leaders of the country’s construction industry revealed perceptions inside the construction industry that ESP was designed to essentially institutionalise and legitimise corruption.
In response to Lucas’ question, Mthimkhulu revealed that ESP was indeed evaluated at the end of implementation phase and it was found that there was “relative under-performance” with regard to the objective related to economic diversification. A small percentage of procurement was from local manufacturers, with only 4 percent of the budget being spent on them. The minister attributed the latter to slow implementation by procuring entities on account of poor quality, exorbitant pricing and non-accreditation of locally manufactured products. With regard to incomplete projects, the minister said that the causes were largely “market-based.” Those he cited were non-performance by contractors, late delivery of building materials and suppliers’ inability to meet increased demand for bricks. He added that the closure of Lobatse Clay Works exacerbated brick shortage.
In order to deal with these and related problems, Mthimkhulu said that the government has introduced a change management framework to guide new reforms, enacted public procurement and economic inclusion legislation to prioritise procurement from citizens and improved turnaround times for evaluation of environment impact assessment reports.
