I have written in the past that if Tshekedi Khama had been given the opportunity to become president of this republic, our nation would be absolutely different. This was a man ahead of his times. It was through his efforts that Serowe started to have access to portable water and through the tribal organization of regiments, Serowe Dam was built and schools started springing up all over the Ngwato Chiefdom.
He allowed mineral prospecting to occur within his territory under his terms and conditions. One of the outstanding projects that have live up until our generation is the Bamangwato Consolidated Limited (BCL) in Selebi Phikwe which is rich in nickel ore and copper. This became part of the Metal Ore Mining Industry plan for Tshekedi Khama.
After the discovery of coal reserves in the Mmamabula area, Tshekedi Khama proposed the development of a railway corridor that connects the eastern part of Botswana with Walvis Bay. This man was a grand strategist and while envisaging a rail link between future Botswana and Namibia, he was equally advocating for South Africa to relinquish its mandate to rule South West Africa. He put so much effort into this to a point of going to do formal advocacy for free Namibia at the UN General Assembly.
I have not come across this in the history books but for sure Tshekedi Khama saw great potential in building a bridge that connects Bechuanaland and Northern Rhodesia which has now become Zambia. This bridge that has been realised sixty-two years after the death of this great leader offers Botswana and Zambia endless opportunities in terms of trade and industry development.
The problem with this country is that we are a nation of great procrastinators both at personal and government level. Government has been mauling on fulfilling the dreams of Tshekedi Khama when the current president was a school boy. The opportunity for coal beneficiation is slowly closing.
Tshekedi Khama’s plan with the rail corridor running to Walvis Bay was to use it to harness the opportunity to export coal to Europe and particularly Britain. That was in the early 1940s and the dynamics of energy consumption have so far shifted.
Developed countries are slowly shifting away from the use of fossil fuels including coal. Sooner than later the mining of coal will be abolished in the interest of controlling and managing climate change and we will only come to regret our procrastination and inaction for this long.
I still fail to grasp our delays even in getting financed projects started. For how long have we been hearing about the Mmamabula Energy Project? And for how long have we been seeing the prospecting of natural gas in Kodibeleng area? The wait is far too long.
In fact if the power station in Mookane was running with the Kodibeleng Gas Plant in production, the planners for the new iron ore mine in Kodibeleng which has been recently discovered would take these energy providers into account.
This is how Botswana continues to export critically needed jobs. Because of insufficiency of higher voltage electricity, we are going to export the iron ore raw material to be refined outside Botswana. That is already happening with our soda ash and has been going on for almost three decades.
The success of the Minergy Coal Project in Medie near Lentsweletau gives a promise that Botswana still needs to be connected to Namibia by rail. The once sleepy road to Lentsweletau has now become alive with trucks moving coal to South Africa and Namibia.
The rail head that reaches Tshele Hills where we are going to have our future petroleum reserves could be extended to reach the coal mine in Medie which is under forty kilometres. And why should we not even have a proper road to the mine which is evidently bringing in the much needed foreign finance.
In fact before we know it, electric cars will take over and the need for a larger facility to store fuels will fall off and the rail head will become a white elephant mothballed in rust.
The development of railway corridors are key for the development of any economy and also serve a strategic purpose for the security of the country as they can be used by the military for operations. It is time we download the plans from our imaginations and put them to application. And if we do this, we will manage to build the rail link between eastern Botswana and the port of Beira.
South Africa still remains to be the most industrialized country in Africa and yet politically unstable. Being their immediate neighbours offers both opportunities and threats but the opportunities outweigh all the negative aspects. In fact we need to move industries to our shores because we offer an alternative political stability.
The industries in South Africa need to use Botswana as a transit country for their products to reach Namibia. The creation of the Trans Kalahari corridor that runs through Botswana has reduced the distance between Johannesburg and Windhoek by over 400km.
Angola is fast tracking development as a strategy from recovering from decades of civil war. At the moment the only access they have to South African goods is through their sea ports. The building of a rail line from Sua Town cutting through most of the Ngamiland District would service Angola well.
In fact Tsodilo is where we need to set up an oil refinery and process the Angolan crude oil. This country is located between several countries that need to do business with each other and Botswana should become a logistics hub.
Botswana remains to be the strategic belly that Cecil Joh Rhodes spoke about on his first trip to Matebeleland. While he traversed this country he saw great opportunity, and that opportunity still awaits exploitation for the benefit of the citizens of this nation.
Instead of seeing great opportunities in our strategic location as a country, we have only believed the negative news that we are land locked and worth less than what we are. We need to begin with that paradigm shift of changing the mind-set.
