Sunday, February 9, 2025

Masisi’s RESET agenda should be showing signs of wins by now…

In mid-2020 forward-looking governments started thinking about how to deal with the immediate and long-term consequences of the economic crisis created by the COVID-19 pandemic. Ours also did its part in the first quarter of 2021 when were introduced to what we now know as the RESET agenda. Through the RESET agenda, the Mokgweetsi Masisi administration seeks to not just shore up public confidence but also to save the ailing economy.

While it is too early to gauge the impact of the RESET agenda on the welfare of the people of the land, it is worth highlighting some of the indicators that also acts as red flags that things could be going south. It is no secret that the COVID-19 economic crisis with vast increases in unemployment and limited access to credit for Batswana owned SMEs has exacerbated existing inequities in our country. Since 2020 lives are now more stressful, and for those who had jobs, work has been turned upside down. For the thousands other Batswana who do not have the means and resources to survive, their eyes have now been set on the RESET agenda for the past 24 months or so. The agenda as having been drafted, driven and implemented by people in positions of power at the office of the President has been presented as a messiah to the socio-economic problems that came with Covid 19.

The question is, to what extend is the RESET agenda of any help now to Batswana to date? Is it answering the problems they are facing now? As seen in other jurisdictions, a greater connection between leaders and the people they lead has great potential to effect the most change needed. The RESET agenda propose that there should be a mindset change amongst Batswana. But I think it should also come with some form of mindset change by the leaders of this country. Our leaders need to effect a mindset change that would see them delivering the kind of governance that is more meaningful and impactful to those outside their bubble. This is because in In ‘Humankind’, author Rutger Bregman shows the heartbreaking consequence of the distance between leaders and the lives of the rest of the people being led, and how that is the biggest problem of all.

What can be said about the RESET agenda in terms of the distance between our leaders and us? Will the agenda narrow or widen up the distance between the two? The team that has been set up led by the Head of Staff at OP – Boyce Sebetela should gather data on that and implement some correction measures because it appears that things are going south. The data gathering aspect of this research should optimally focus on understanding Batswana’s perception on the RESET agenda and its relation to their current situation with highlights on opportunities, barriers and even their fears. We will not know the effects of the Covid 19 pandemic on income inequality until reliable administrative and household research has been done. In a country that was highly unequal in so many ways well before it had a confirmed case of COVID-19, it is now clear that the middle class and the poor’s financial buffers are now thin. The poor and the middle class are facing their greatest threats possibly since the days of Sir Ketumile Masire as president. When a crisis like Covid 19 comes—whether to an individual, a group, or an entire society—starting points matter.

Those who have prepared and have some reserves fare better than those who have not. As for the middle class and the poor in Botswana, the economic fallout from the pandemic has been severe. We are now facing stagflation and the question is: what can the President’s RESET agenda do to reverse or at bare minimum slow down the impacts of it? While a strong economic recovery has been projected for this past year (2021) such means very little to a taxi or a bus owner who is facing high cost of doing business thanks to the ever growing fuel prices. Positive GDP numbers that Finance and Economic Development Minister is likely to speak about next month are of no use to unemployed graduates and their fellow citizens that have to dig deeper into their pockets at grocery stores. The positive consequences of the Covid 19 sponsored economic crisis should be a stronger recognition and reminder of the need to centre every decisions and plan that we draw, including the RESET agenda, to be around the people of the land. The #Bottomline is that if ever there was a time for evidence-based policy, founded on good data, this is it.

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