All indications are that by mid-year, somewhere around June/July, fuel prices would have risen to pre-recession levels of 2008, possibly higher.
Following closely on the heels of rising fuel prices will be food prices.
Other than that, the economic recovery, which remains fragile, is at risk, the poor members of our society will bear the biggest brunt of the double whammy.
Government has demonstrated greater imagination in how the negative impacts of these twin evils are going to be minimized among the weakest members of our society.
It is difficult to see how growing spinach and beetroot gardens in their backyards ÔÇô so far the only answer given by Government – can provide the necessary cushion for the poor against what by any account threatens to be a more protracted and deeper recession than that from which we are still to fully recover.
Growing food prices are a serious security threat that is a painful truth we must accept.
The situation is all the more compounded by the fact that we produce very little for ourselves.
Close to 80 percent, if not more, of our food needs is taken care of from outside our borders.
When tragedy hits and our supplier countries also have problems meeting their local needs there is no way we could be their priority.
The end result, invariably, is that we are relegated to lower levels irrespective of how much money we bring to the table.
We are at other peoples’ mercy.
It is the same mistake we made with regard to our energy needs, the mistakes from which we are still to recover.
The greater tragedy is that it does not look like any lessons have been learnt.
For Botswana, the phrase ‘food security’ is still to make its way into our lexicon.
How long that takes is anybody’s guess.
Our food production policy is in need of an overhaul; a root to branch review that will ultimately aim at attaining self-sufficiency.
Anything less will not work. And time is not on our side.
We draw some solace from the fact that there are some ramblings coming from the Government enclave that indicate at a revival of the agricultural sector.
In the meantime, it is the poor, the less privileged, the weakest members of our society , especially those who are out of work that will suffer the most.
As a country, we cannot escape the painful truth that over the last twenty years we have witnessed exponential growth of our population migrating from rural to urban areas.
When they left the rural areas, these people had hopes, visions and dreams of a more prosperous and successful sustenance in the urban areas. That was not to be.
The result was that they effectively cut themselves from any productive agriculture ÔÇô however subsistent it might have been.
Because they are not involved in any form of agriculture they have found themselves relying more and more on food production that has its price codes directly linked to the international market ÔÇô where they and indeed their Government have no influence nor say whatsoever.
These are the most vulnerable people during these times of uncertainty. And their numbers are forever swelling.
There used to be a time when Botswana had so much money in foreign reserves that Government was always in a better place to provide a cushion by way of absorbing costs in the form of subsidies when international prices for such commodities like fuel and food went up.
Those times are gone, probably for good, unless the international economy recovers to where it was pre-recession, so that the West can start buying our diamonds again ÔÇô and with what is happening in North Africa and in many other parts of the world where oil is produced, such recovery seems further and further away from the horizons.
While there is no question about how weak our Government has become on what interventionist options it has and also its limited room for maneuver, there is a paradox in that we simply cannot emerge from this crisis without it mutating into a catastrophe for many of our people unless there is intervention by government.
We stay aloof with the real risk of wiping whatever gains we have made so far over the years to help our people graduate from poverty.
What we need are ways that will ensure the weakest of our people are well protected; otherwise national security is under threat!
