We are only a few months before President Ian Khama reaches his mandatory retirement after 10 years at the helm.
Since his first day in office, President Khama has made fighting poverty his number 1 priority.
During that time Poverty Eradication has remained his signature programme.
And towards that he has dedicated and appropriated countless personal efforts and state resources.
During his time as a cabinet minister, the current Vice President, Mokgweetsi Masisi was the one spearheading Poverty Eradication.
President Khama deserves credit for choosing the fight against poverty as a priority for his time in office.
Questions however remain over the endurance capabilities of the legacy in as far as those programmes are concerned.
Skeptics have been consistent in their doubts over the tactics adopted by the president in his fight against poverty.
Those doubts have mainly centered on the programmes chosen to fight poverty.
During the earlier years, Government implemented what was called backyard gardens.
After some time, Government changed strategy after the feasibility of backyard gardens became suspects, owing to drought and high water tariffs.
Then Government concentrated on raising money to build houses and homes for the poor.
Again skeptics were not convinced.
For our part we have always insisted that the surest way to fight poverty is to create an economy that itself creates private sector jobs that are permanent and productive.
That has not happened.
Instead Government has concentrated on Ipelegeng jobs.
At the beginning, Ipelegeng jobs were sold to the country and nation as a stop-gap measure as new initiatives were being put in place to turn the economy around following the economic meltdown of 2008/10.
Yet Ipelegeng has now become a permanent feature of our job market.
And there is no hint that Ipelegeng is about to be halted, notwithstanding its deleterious effects on productivity levels, work ethic as well as the overall economy.
The biggest tragedy is that there does not seem to be an economic agenda aimed at kick-starting the economy.
While the Government has in the past came up with what was called the ESP (Economic Stimulus package), it is still an open issue of debate if that that ESP in the end had the stimulus effects on the economy that Government had desired.
In the meantime the poor have grown poor.
It would look like poverty is set to become an accepted new normal, especially because the economy is today operating far below its optimal.
The situation is made worse by current levels of corruption and greed among officials, not to mention terribly low enthusiasm at redistributing fairly the proceeds of the economy.
A starting point should be reform the economy.
That cannot be achieved without engaged the middle class.
For almost ten years now Government has treated the middle class as a leper.
We need to grow the middle class and help them invest.
That can only be done if they feel appreciated as an integral segment of our society.
It is difficult to see our rich continue to sleep peacefully at night when they are surrounded by such dreadful poverty around them.
Just over ten years ago, HIV/AIDs was Botswana’s number 1 security threat.
Today poverty and unemployment are.
We have to be honest to ourselves and concede that the amount of resources spent on fighting poverty have not been anywhere worthy the results we got.
That has mainly been due to our tactics and strategies rather than the choices.
