Thousands of Batswana youths are roaming the streets unemployed, but President Lt Gen Ian Khama last week had a novel message for the public: let them play soccer.
In a nutshell that is the view from the factory floors on President Khama’s state of the nation address youth empowerment initiatives. Botswana Federation of Trade Unions (BFTU) Secretary General Gadzani Mhotsha almost sees Khama’s constituency league in the same light as Marie Antoinette’s choice phrase, which has became a symbol for the callous indifference of the rich: let them eat cake. The Queen consort of Louis XVI is supposed to have said this when she was told that the French populace had no bread to eat.
Mhosha argues that youth empowerment programmes should be tailored to resolve the problem of high levels of unemployment among rural young women and to create opportunities for out of school youths and unemployed graduates. He says the constituency league, believed to be Khama’s pet project, was not helpful because it targets youths who not only are out of school, but are also not necessarily interested in football except as a way of keeping themselves busy.
He proposed that the initiative be mainstreamed into the school curriculum so as to “start them young” and develop them in line with talents identified at the earliest stages of their growth.
In another parallel to Marie Antoinette whose 25 years during which she was queen were characterized by an unceasing movement in an orbit around her own ego, Mhosha feels Khama’s State of the nation address which is the longest so far called attention to him or rather to the successes of his administration.
“Despite the theme of the address being ‘Delivering people centered development’; it brought forth the view of a government having monopoly of knowledge and solutions to problems with little room for criticism or alternative viewpoints.”
He says as a result, the address was “highly defensive and wrapped in self praise,” occasionally expressing dismissive, cynical view of dissent and showing high levels of intolerance to alternative views.
“The speech was partisan and sought to deny as much as possible any government failures by either omitting them or harshly arguing against any criticism. The evasiveness was interspersed with an occasional threat against what he termed errant behavior.”
Mhosha says other than being deficient on the social dimension of development, Khama’s state of the nation address tried to veil blunders, commissions and omissions with unwarranted attacks on perceived enemies as a deliberated strategy.
“The effect was a weak premise from which Khama could offer any substantive options especially in view of diversification.”
BFTU argues that, part of what resulted in a weak premise for alternative development path, manifested in Government’s failure to place the link between diversification, economic strategy and trade policy, with the impact of the European Union’s Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs).
He says over and above the EPAs being such binding agreements on a country, they have potentially far reaching implications on the national economy and the broader population, which citizens cannot afford to remain ignorant of.
“Therefore it was an unpardonable error of omission on the part of the President to have failed to comment on such a fundamental matter, since it was imperative that the nation knew whether to brace up for threats or opportunities in the advent of the EPAs.”
Although the President made reference to the newly adopted public service law, BFTU feels he erred by not mentioning issues around the bargaining council and related matters.
“To the outside world as to our own people locally, overlooking these cardinal issues may only send the message that the present government is not keen to move with the global tide,” Mhotsha said after a Press Conference at the BFTU head office.
“For example, it is an enshrined requirement in the EPAs that countries must have legislated in favor of the Global jobs pact, an element of the ILO’s Decent Work Agenda (DWA), yet that wouldn’t suffice to spur the President in his address to acknowledge.”
The union berated Khama for resisting the consolidation of the many social security schemes and institutions and moving away from government’s handouts.
“To this day the authorities have refused to ratify a critical ILO Convention of social security(C 102), SADC code on Social security and the Charter of Fundamental Social Rights in SADC.
“Failure to subordinate government initiatives to the Regional Indicative Strategy Development Plan (RISDP) and inability to mainstream Decent Work Country Programme (DWCP) into all planning as well as to use the ILO’s Declaration on Social Justice for a fair Globalization as a framework principle, raises doubts on the sustainability of Khama’s present populist initiatives.”
Mhosha says the state of the nation address did not state the jobs lost, retained or created during the recession. Nothing was said of who really benefitted from stimulus packages, such as in the textile industry and the origin of the business ownership, lest there be a repeating of the same mistakes of the FAP era.
“However, there is doubt of the results, since most of the new initiatives depend a lot on dominant paradigms of development,” he said.
“We also note the President’s views on trade unions and politics, which were also stated at BDP National Council on 22nd May 2010. The Office of the President (OP) takes a very narrow, economist view of the role of trade unions in a democracy, that they should confine their comments and activities to the workplace,” said Mhotsha.
“OP does not seem to have heard of Social Unionism. The labour movement cannot be confined into a kraal like cattle.” He explained that BFTU does not however, support “opportunism, populism and abuse of trade union rights which sometimes characterizes our labour activism. Nevertheless this does not legitimize general anti-union sentiments or the contempt with which OP holds the union movement.”
President of Botswana Public Employees Union (BOPEU) and Secretary General of Botswana Federation of Public Sector Trade Unions (BOFEPUSU), Andrew Motsamai, said, “as for us, arrangements are on to communicate to the OP our reservations regarding certain of the many and varied issues in which trade unions were portrayed in bad light, and our desire to establish first hand from President Khama, what may have informed his premise.”
Motsamai said they were however in agreement with a lot of issues raised by BFTU. “We believe that with time the President will come to draw a line between regulations and ethical factors constraining individual employees from political activity, on the one hand, and positions adopted by trade unions as political entities,” added Motsamai.
