Its Christmas time and we all know how hell bent you are on stopping some deeds like drinking or partying. The question I would like to ask is what do you want people to do over the holidays?
Come to think of it there isn’t much to do in Botswana except drink and be merry, you can’t go play mini golf; you can’t go to the park to relax; not even one pond to go and feed the ducks or even go to a place you can play traditional games like koi or mmele.
In an upper middle class country the capital city does not have sporting facilities for all sporting codes, the national teams of sports like swimming, basketball, badminton. The list goes on. They have to use facilities in the University of Botswana, and it’s a shame! ┬áWhat I am trying to get to here is government has created an environment where the nation cannot go and get entertained without going to the bars or night clubs and then when all the damage is done you want to teach old dogs new tricks and am not even show what the new tricks would I would hope you have figured something out.
I don’t know what is worse? The fact that bars and general dealers are reserved for Batswana strictly then food is taken from their table or the fact that you can’t do anything but drink for entertainment.
If you think about it, how many people in Botswana drink? A lot and why do they drink? To socialise and brag about it. After a weekend of drinking and club hoping you will hear someone pompously say how they drank so much beer they couldn’t see themselves and they met old friends at different bars and the hung out.
There are more bars in Botswana than schools or parks or sport facilities or leisure facilities, you are well travelled when it comes to Botswana am sure you have grasped that.
I think we are just unlucky to be one of the most submissive countries in the world, if it was in any other country people would have burnt down buildings by now. Your government has this bad habit of saying there is no money for project but when it best suits them money will be available.
The plain simple truth is that as Batswana we have no BUYING POWER, the government has got all our money and they are circulating it amongst themselves creating an economy where only the BDP fat cats gain access to big money and we are left scrambling for peanuts. 
I remember when Game City opened it had a mini golf course and mountain climbing activities, so the BDP fat cats realised that people need another forms of entertainment? Now the problem comes when the parents don’t have the means to let their kids play with money and no old man with his big belly will play mini golf if he can go do what he knows best drinking.
For us to move away from drinking too much alcohol and clubbing it has to come from an earlier generation that can afford to use the games room and play all day, go to Lion Park for sober fun.
As long as the parents can’t afford to give kids leisure money to do alcohol free activities at a young age (around 4 years old) when they grow up they start drinking, there is a bars and depots everywhere you go but you can’t find a park in Mogoditshane. The money that is being spent on spying on what people are saying on the phone can be used to create safe fun environment like sports facilities, the zoo, lively parks and games rooms.
Since inception the DIS has taken close to P400 Million every year I think if I am not mistaken they are turning 3 years now, that makes their total expenditure P1.2 Billion for a small country like ours with people who don’t even have adequate money to save we could use sum cheap ways of leisure. ┬áThey are so many things that the government is spending on like constant workshops and recently PITSO’s that do not have a constructive sway on the economy, maybe that money can be used to pay for public school fees.
Our government is hell bent on taking revenge on people when go they voice out their opinions or diverge with their view but when it comes to improving the country they will drag their feet. Right now the CBD has been given to entrepreneurs to create building and Batswana as usual have been left out in the cold. The penthouses that are for rent are beyond most Batswana’s reach and the offices are a pie in the sky for most. So as it is we are passengers in our own train, talking about trains where is our passenger train? Can you believe this government they fight with BR saying they have money they will not help them and in the end let Batswana suffer while they have fancy meeting and conferences at GICC.
So transport is expensive to make it worse food is expensive because the government failed to improve the agriculture sector they have even taken our food produce down from independence when everyone knew that they had to grow crops and preserve livestock. The norm of people getting into farming was eradicated and a new phenomenon of working in the government office was deployed now the government is over staffed only now after 46 years there is an urgency to put people back into farming after then left to eaten by BDP fat cat who monopolised agriculture. Education is bad I can’t discuss it now it would take forever, poverty is worsening, diseases are increasing and the economy belongs to foreigners.
The fact of the matter is as Batswana we have no buying power, the government does but it is botching the funds.
Answer me this Mr President what have you given Batswana for Christmas? What can make them look forward to waking up in the morning? I will leave you with these words give a man a fish he will eat for a day teach a man how to fish he will never go hungry.
 
Kenneth Nelson
Gaborone
