“…To be blunt, I am calling for a future economic policy which will aggressively discriminate in favour of promoting citizens. If the existing financial institutions cannot promote a policy of discriminating in favour of Batswana, then the Government must create indigenous institutions which will do so. As far as I know, all countries in the world consciously set out to assist in the development of their own people. I know of no country or community in the world that has been content to allow financial management of the economy to be left entirely to foreign or expatriate institutions…”
David Ntsimele Magang (1981)
We quote the above speech by retired politician and businessman David Magang to show that the ongoing debate on citizen empowerment is not new.
We have also selected Magang, a high priest inside the ruling Botswana Democratic Party, to show that those calling for empowerment are not in anyway oppositionist malcontents. Even BDP insiders have long had a vision of a Botswana run by Batswana.
More than that, Magang is also a more apt example; having been through the mill, he knows better than many of us.
Not only has he been a BDP insider, he has also on more than one occasion been forced by circumstances to resign from office so as to avoid a possible conflict of interest and also to give more time to his personal business interests. Looking at what he has achieved, there is no doubt that his personal sacrifices were worth it.
But that is all beside the point.
What we want to point out is that there is nothing xenophobic about calls for citizen economic empowerment.
There is nothing wrong with asking expatriates to make room for citizens who are equally capable.
There is nothing ultranationalist about calling for positions of influence to be given to Batswana.
At The Sunday Standard we believe that because of the heavy tide of globalisation, against which we are helpless, the country shall forever need expatriate manpower in one form or another.
After all, we are indebted to them, for all the good work they have done for us over the years.
But in some areas, we have to tell them “thank you very much for coming to our assistance in a time of need, but when are you going home?”
We believe there are those professions for which there are very able and capable Batswana who have been trained at government cost.
And in here we are talking about skilled Batswana who will compete anywhere in the world, having been trained at some of the world’s best and most prestigious colleges and universities. It is, therefore, an insult that such Batswana are not able to get employment for which the country has invested so heavily simply because they are blocked out by expatriates who are doing all sorts of things to frustrate them.
The biggest culprits, we hasten to point out, are the mining houses, tourism and the hotel and catering economic sectors.
The situation is worse in and around Francistown where the mining activity is resurgent.
These are some of the areas where citizens have been deliberately excluded.
Those citizens who participate in these sectors do that as menial workers who, for a large part, of the time have to endure all forms of racist and sometime sexual abuses.
The world-renowned Okavango tourism enclave is the hotspot in these abuses.
Our leaders know it, and are openly condoning and, in some worse cases, taking part in the offences.
Botswana’s tourism sector is still in the hands of the expatriate operators, largely white, a good number of whom are racists from South Africa and Rhodesia.
It is unfortunate that some of the country’s most powerful politicians who have vested interests in this sector have been bought off so much as to be complicit in the near criminal parceling out of the country’s integrity to foreign interests.
It is for that reason that we are defending what Assistant Minister Olifant Mfa has been doing lately; getting rid not only of abusive expatriates, but also ensuring that where there are Batswana who can do the jobs, expatriates make way for citizens.
Minister Mfa should be resolute in his purging of wayward expatriates.
Mfa should not be worried about the lobby to get President Festus Mogae to chuck him from the position.
Many Batswana are on his side. He may lose his job, but he would keep his integrity and soul.
That said we want to point out that not every expatriate in Botswana is an investor.
We want to point out that not every expatriate is bad.
We also want to point out that for a foreseeable future the country will continue to need expatriate manpower in one way or another.
But in the same vein we want to emphasise what David Magang said as early as 1981 that “I know of no country or community in the world that has been content to allow financial management of the economy to be left entirely to foreign or expatriate institutions.”
His words have never been more relevant.
Assistant Minister Mfa may be brash, unrefined and untactful as to be uncouth in the way he is implementing his vision, but he certainly has a point.
What country or nation shall we become if we were to attract all investors in the world but lose our souls and integrity as some of the so-called investors want us to?
