Our leaders’ use of local in regard to citizen may be understandable to some given that in the eyes of the public service, localization means the taking over of jobs by citizens. Most of our leaders are products of the public service.
They have risen through the ranks taking over from foreigners. I am however not convinced that our leaders are honestly mistaken in their use of local and citizen interchangeably with regard to citizen economic empowerment.
There is just no way that highly educated people can, for a period in excess of 40 years, fail to realize the distinction between local and citizen.
The reason our leaders cannot make this distinction is that they are too close to foreign owned entities. In their scheme of things they are looking to rent out their power and geographical location. They do not see Batswana as a people who by right have to dominate the domestic economy. They see Botswana as a geographical location where they exercise power, and where a people called Batswana for some strange reason happen to live.
President Khama is unable to speak the language of Mandela, Mbeki, Zuma and Mugabe in regard to Batswana in the economic arena. I have for some time harboured the hope that as a kgosi and former army commander he would be different from Masire and Mogae on the issue of citizen participation in the mainstream economy.
I had hoped that he would understand that our dikgosi went to England to buy time and space for our people, not to graft our people into the future of some foreign entity. I must confess I have been disappointed to realize that he lacks the courage to clearly speak out in the name of Batswana in the economic arena.
There is no way that President Khama can purport to speak for Batswana if he cannot make a distinction between local and citizen owned enterprises. It is after all possible to have a local enterprise that is foreign owned. There is no way that purchasing from this enterprise can be called citizen economic empowerment.
We cannot give President Khama the courage to speak on our behalf. As our leader it is up to him that we look for courage. In Setswana we have a saying “e a re go thotsa malata a gogobe”.
If he stumbles as he seems to be doing, the nation crawls. There is no advantage to our people to avoid dispassionately looking at Rre Khama and assessing him, and seeing whether he actually has it. I have read an article by Rre Magang suggesting that our government under the leadership of Rre Khama is doing the right thing in regard to citizen economic empowerment.
I have noticed that like our government Rre Magang does not distinguish between citizen and local.
Rre Magang suggests that the review of the Public Procurement and Asset Disposal Act did something positive for citizen economic empowerment. I beg to differ.
All the review did was take power from government as regards formulation of reservation and preference schemes and give it to the Minister of Finance. I have yet to see any Minister of Finance use this power to formulate any meaningful reservation and preference scheme. The same ministry has failed to formulate a citizen economic empowerment policy even after parliament passed a motion calling for the same. Nothing has changed in the two years that Rre Khama has been in power.
Rre Magang also raises the subject of foreign owned companies from South Africa where they are subject to Black Economic Empowerment laws and their failure to extend the same to Botswana. These companies have as we Batswana say, “ba badile baeteledipele ba rona meno”. They have weighed our leaders and found them wanting. It is my belief that these foreign entities have profiled our leaders and come to the conclusion that unlike their counterparts in South Africa and Zimbabwe our leaders lack the courage to stand up for their people in the economic arena.
Citizen economic empowerment is not a domestic issue. It is an international relations issue. It defines how we relate to people of other countries on the economic front.
A foreign government like that of South Africa looks at Botswana as economic space to be occupied by its people. It sees Botswana as a place where opportunities taken from whites in South Africa to accommodate blacks in the new order, can be returned to white people.
Botswana is effectively a pressure relief valve for South Africa.
The same applies to our relationship with Zimbabwe. If one looks at Mugabe’s actions only from a political point of view, one will miss the economic benefits of his actions to his people relative to Batswana. Zimbabweans currently control some financial institutions, river sand and trucking businesses in Botswana.
They have acquired land and other property in Botswana. Batswana do not have any significant presence in any economic sector in Zimbabwe, nor do they have any significant property holdings in Zimbabwe.
Given that it takes about seven years for a mining venture to become operational, without necessarily being profitable, and that Rre Khama is left with less than eight years if he wins elections in 2014, it is highly unlikely that Rre Khama will see significant increases in government’s purchasing power during his term.
One would, therefore, expect him to take two approaches on the citizen economic empowerment front. Rre Khama has to make a clear distinction between citizen and local in using government’s purchasing power to promote citizen economic empowerment.
On the other hand he should ensure citizen participation in projects that are likely to come on stream during or after his reign by selling the 15% stake that government is entitled to by law to our citizens.
In my view calls for a national mining company are flawed for they perpetuate the current situation where our government is rich and the people poor.
A better proposal is for government to establish companies around the 15% it is by law entitled to as the founding asset. The nature of shareholding, whether community, gender or age based will be a separate consideration to be left to lawyers and other actors.
In fact this is the best way to benefit communities where mining activities take place, instead of relying on the whims of private sector executives trying to assuage their egos through so called social responsibility projects.
I am aware of a scheme where our people can buy certificates from Botswana Savings Bank. Why can we not establish a mining interests company where we give those who have purchased these certificates an option to convert these certificates or part thereof into shares in a company whose initial asset is the 15% that our government is entitled to in any mining venture?
I believe this will encourage our people to buy more of these certificates thus promoting a culture of saving that we so desperately want to inculcate in our people, and also help eliminate the alienation that obtains between our people and mining operations.
We can take the same approach in the retail sector where foreign and local chain stores have forced the closure of independent operators. Instead of asking these entities to list in the stock exchange where institutional investors and the rich will muscle out our people, we can relate the purchase of Botswana Savings Bank certificates to shareholding in these entities.
In a country where consumption of foreign goods and services is high, we must position our people to have a share in the profits in the retail of goods and services. If foreign entities are reluctant to buy citizen produce we must make sure citizens get a share of the profits through dividends. We cannot have a situation where foreign owned but locally based entities refuse to buy our goods and services but gladly take profits from us.
Even in the proposed privatization of Botswana Telecommunications Corporation why can we not tie purchasing of Botswana Savings Bank certificates to preferential treatment for those who have these certificates?
We have post offices throughout our country and our people are relatively comfortable dealing with these than with stockbrokers who are only located in urban areas. The use of Botswana Savings Bank certificates in this manner would allow our people to grow a nest egg in the interim to acquire shares in BTC in the future.
The truth is that China underwrites world poverty. It allows its people to be paid low wages thus making it difficult for countries like Botswana to establish meaningful manufacturing industries.
What is the point of getting a soft loan from China to construct a road when at the end of that road we cannot establish any industries because the country that gave us the soft loan allows its people to be paid slave wages, thus undermining our efforts to nurture the same sector to create employment for our people? At the end the road serves as a conduit for the products of China.
We need a leadership that thinks in the manner that I set out above or better.
Botswana’s wealth must be in our hands.
