The Ministry of Finance and Development planning has recently announced plans to consult the public on the drafting of the National Development 11.
Since independence in 1966, the process of development in Botswana has been undertaken through NDPs.
This has meant that such development processes were transparent, predictable and devoid of official caprice.
It has also meant that NDPs occupied a sacrosanct space in our developmental public space.
It was thus shocking to learn a while ago when a decision was taken at cabinet to effectively suspend running this country through the NDPs.
For those well versed with the portent power of NDPs, the decision by cabinet amounted to suspending the constitution and running the country by decree.
If there was any far reaching example of how the Ministry of Finance and development Planning has over the years lost both power and prestige, this was it.
NDPs went to the very core of underlining both the power and prestige of the ministry vis-à-vis.
That power and prestige while it generated envy and hatred among other ministries, it served a purpose.
It concentrated power on the engine room that was driving development, a process that the time matter much more than anything including national security.
That was the time when the ministry was literally a breeding ground of future presidents. That was then.
How things change.
Thankfully, with the announcement of drafting NDP 11, we are now back on track.
But a lot needs to done.
Given the strong differences and also the unmistakable public polarity over the direction of the country, it is important that those in authority seek to establish consensus so that a semblance of ownership of the NDP is created.
At the moment this country is veering into a phase, through which other African countries have passed where the public chooses to disengage from all government activities.
This has the consequence of taking away the legitimacy of Government, but also of robbing the public of an opportunity to have a voice and influence on how their country is governed.
Those in power like to point out that theirs is not a coalition Government and that any efforts to consult the opposition and civic community are really at the pleasure of those elected.
They might very well be correct.
But such an attitude denies the elected government the much needed goodwill especially at a time when statistics show that the party in power was elected by fewer people than has been the case with combined opposition.
The Ministry of Finance is treading through a landmine that has seen much more than just the shrinking of its power inside government.
The economy is itself in tatters.
Already the Ministry has announced that that projections have shown a tight balance between expenditure and receivables, that in the whole depict an NDP predicated on budget deficit.
That on and by itself is not good news.
It is a classic example of just how the country can no longer continue running on mining revenues without exploiting new streams.
It is clear we are headed for tumultuous economic times.
And the surest way to negotiate such terrain is to create a broad consensus.
That is what the ministry of finance should be pushing for.
That can only be achieved through transparency.
