Author Fred Durst said ‘When I look back on my knee jerk reaction now, I realise I should have just taken a breath’. I cannot agree more with Durst because this is what government should have done before introducing reactive as opposed to proactive measures to deal with vegetable imports and Covid-19 pandemic.
Government has introduced strict measures to restrict importation of some vegetables as some effort to promote local production and supply to consumers and the new Covid-19 requirements whose objective is to control and monitor importation of the virus from outside the country. On face value, these new strict measures appear benevolent but on further and intense scrutiny, they are set to deliver unintended consequences. It is not in dispute that Botswana should be vegetable sufficient from local producers and further that there is a greater need to control the spread of Covid-19 virus. But these with respect, cannot be achieved by hook or crook and more importantly, to the detriment of economic development they potentially pose considering the overall economy has been dealt a devastating blow by the deleterious consequences of the pandemic and the restrictions to vegetable importation.
Vegetable imports
Since independence and over fifty decades ago, Botswana has been importing almost all its food stuffs including vegetables from outside particularly from South Africa. This because Botswana has been talking endlessly more about food sufficiency than actually implementing it through aggressive food supply chain and the diversification of the economy. With vast tracts of land and available manpower amongst others to ensure the country is food sufficient and with particular reference to vegetables, political will as a vehicle to ensure the country was self- sufficient in vegetable availability has been absent as ever to ensure the country was vegetable sufficient. Truth be told, Botswana should have long stopped importing tomatoes and spinach-vegetables every able bodied person can produce from their back gardens with generally low input costs. Instead of treating the threat posed by vegetable insufficiency as an opportunity to deal with it, Botswana continued to eulogise the threat by paying exorbitant import bill on foodstuff including vegetables. I went to a few retail stores over the weekend to assess the availability or lack thereof of vegetables particularly potatoes. To my disappointment, there were no potatoes as it has been the case since the ban was announced. If the argument is that the local producers can meet the local market, that argument is seriously flawed because prevailing situation point to the contrary. How could government impose a ban on the importation of potatoes for example before ensuring the same is produced in large quantities to satisfy local market? It can only because of knee-jerk reaction!
The drastic position government has adopted has, predictably, had negative socio-economic impact on the small business people who rely heavily on importing potatoes for their businesses and by extension, their livelihoods. Because these small business people are not producers of potatoes /tomatoes themselves I want to believe, they will naturally as has been the case for so long depend on other small business people to import for them. The moment this umbilical cord between the small potato consumer and supplier is brutally cut, the consequences are too dire to comprehend. The implications are there for all to see.
Simply put, many livelihoods are shattered probably to a point of no reparation. In the process meanwhile, a lot of jobs were or are exported by enabling the exporting markets to employ their citizens to produce for Botswana’s markets. If government had just taken a deep breadth to consider the ripple effects the ban on the importation of horticulture produce potentially posed to the overall economy, the overall negative impact could have been avoided. Let me be clear to state that I am not opposed to government pushing for vegetable sufficiency but to say the knee-jerk reaction has not helped the situation but worsened it.
New Covid-19 requirements
The import of these requirements broadly speaking, is to restrict the importation of Covid-19 virus into the country. I have no qualms with it given how the virus to this point continues to ravage our individual lives down to our economic viability. But how these requirements stand to have a negative impact on the economy at every level which I verily believe is the case, should have been considered. I have already discussed the precarious situation small business people find themselves in with respect to the banning of some vegetables into the country. Tied to this situation is that other small business people engaged in other businesses not tied to the horticultural sector will find themselves at the wrong end of the stick. I want to believe there will be those small business people who may have not received Covid-19 vaccinations for whatever reason let alone booster jabs but source their critical business inputs from South Africa. Owing to the new requirements, it will be hard if not impossible for them to pursue their business interests across the border due to the somewhat exorbitant fine of P 5000 or 1 year imprisonment or both. As a consequence thereto, the small business people will be seriously impacted upon with these people left in the lurch.
It will be remembered that even before the introduction of the new requirements, the very same small business people were bitterly complaining about the cost of PCR tests they had to undergo every time they wanted to cross the border. With the new requirements coupled with stern punishment as alluded to above, it is fair to say small business will all but be disabled to the detriment of the economic livelihoods of all those concerned.
The other aspect of the negative impact of the new requirements will be the delivery of goods and service from outside the country by people from those countries. It will be remembered how dire the situation of delivery of the same was when Covid-19 regulations were implemented during the period of lockdown. Border posts were chock-a-block with delivery trucks caused by the snail pace of processing drivers for Covid-19 compliance. This caused high incidences of delays in such goods and services reaching their destinations very late. Unless a plan is in place where inward bound goods and services are picked at the border by Batswana, the new requirements could very well revert the country to those days when border posts would be chock-a-block once again with delays in goods and services seamlessly crossing the borders. There is a high likelihood that foreign truck drivers could refuse to comply with the new requirements with that in and of itself causing further untold chock-a-block at points of entry.
It is not in dispute that in principle, the two issues require urgent attention but not in the form of knee-jerk reaction as alluded to above. While not suggesting Covid-19 pandemic is a thing of the past, the fact of the matter is that overall, regulations and restrictions have been largely eased. By easing regulations and restrictions, the expected outcome is that conducive conditions are been created for the economy across all levels to be resuscitated.
But I am afraid the knee-jerk reaction exhibited by government to the vegetable and Covid-19 issues is a case of taking a few steps forward and taking a lot bad ones backwards. ‘When I look back on my knee-jerk reaction now, I realise I should have just taken a breadth’. I am prepared to be persuaded otherwise as always. Judge for Yourself!
‘No one is safe until everyone is safe’.
