The causes of low productivity in our society are cultural, structural and in many ways institutional.
Last week the Botswana National Productivity Centre released for public consumption the Global Competitiveness Report.
We produce in detail, a direct quotation from BNPC text: “In this year’s Report, Botswana is ranked 71st out of 140 countries. This marks an improvement of 3 places, relative to the previous Report. The country’s quality score has also improved from 4.15 out of 7 to 4.19. Therefore Botswana remains at 4th place in the region, behind Mauritius, South Africa and Rwanda who attained positions 46, 49 and 58 respectively.
The macro-economic environment, ranked at 9th position globally, still remains Botswana’s main competitiveness strength. This is mainly attributable to the country’s balanced fiscal budget, higher gross national savings and lower levels of inflation.
“Botswana’s reliable and transparent institutions have placed the country at 37th position. This marks an improvement of 2 places from the previous Report. Despite the improvement in ranking the quality score has decreased from 4.5 in 2014-2015 Report to 4.4 this year.
“Furthermore, the labour market efficiency pillar still remains one of Botswana’s successes. Though the country has dropped from position 36th previously to 39th this year, Botswana is ranked among the top fifty countries in most of the indicators under this pillar.
“Notwithstanding these accomplishments, the country still struggles on other pillars such as business sophistication (111th), market size (105th), innovation (102nd) higher education and training (100th) and goods market efficiency (95th). This is mainly triggered by the fact that Botswana is in transition stage of development from being a factor driven economy to an efficiency driven one.
As a result, Botswana performs better on the factor driven pillars relative to efficiency and innovation driven pillars of competitiveness.
“The health and primary education remain the least performing pillars (119th). HIV/AIDS remains the biggest obstacle facing Botswana in her efforts to improve her overall competitiveness. The country still registers one of the highest HIV/AIDS rates as well as one of the lowest life expectancies in the world. Botswana’s education system still remains low by international standards though the country has improved from 82nd last year to 77th in this year’s Report in terms of the quality of education.
“Meanwhile, the business community in Botswana still regards poor work ethic in the national labour force as the most problematic factor for doing business in the country. The severity of this problem has increased by 0.5% in relation to the previous Report. Inefficient government bureaucracy has moved to second as the most problematic factor followed by restrictive labour regulations.
Policy and government instability still remain the least problematic factors for doing business in the country.”
From the above text from BNPC, clearly there is a lot for us to do as a country when it comes to productivity.
Hiding behind semantics will not help us resolve the problems.
There is nothing wrong remembering with a sense of nostalgia the 1980s and 1990s diamond-propelled economic booms that ultimately laid a foundation for what has in some quarters been wrongfully referred to as Africa’s miracle.
But as a country we have for too long behaved like a drug addict who cannot do a thing without taking a substance.
And for us and our economy, that substance has been diamond.
There is a myth that we like to brandish about as a nation that we have escaped the resource curse that has often plagued other resource rich countries, especially in Africa.
We attribute that success to being a tolerant people, somehow creating yet another veneer of misplaced exceptionalism about ourselves. That is only helpful in as far as it creates exaggerated sense of nationalistic egos amongst ourselves.
But beyond that it is counterproductive. It is an emotional attachment that only serves to inflame our sense of worth far beyond what we really are.
We are as African as they come ÔÇô with all the follies, sensibilities, weaknesses, strengths and defects that are found in any African society.
It is important for us to accept that the days of diamond-fuelled economic growths are gone, certainly for good.
The future will to a very large degree be dependent on how much we get our act together on productivity.
So far the situation as shown above is not encouraging.
But it can be done. And the sooner we work at it, the better it will be for this country.
If we do not act now, the low productivity levels will with time condemn our economy into ruins.
While still there, it is instructive to note the outcome yet another latest ranking released this week.
It should be of concern that the 2015 Ibrahim Index of African Governance (IIAG), shows that Botswana while 3rd overall out of 54 African countries, has registered a reduced score of 74.2 (down from 76.2 in 2014).
Naturally, Botswana Government has been quick to downplay this down slip, saying the same modestly downward trend was apparent in the ratings of other countries as other top countries.
It is yet another sign that as a country, because we are used to being applauded, we have never learnt to internalize external criticism.
We are behaving like a child who knows only how to win. The day they do not win, they start throwing tantrums, including trying to blame everybody else, but themselves for their lackluster performance.
Outsiders, including investors will however not be putting such a spin. Instead they will take the slip much more seriously.
