The problem is President Khama

The story of President Khama’s presidency is replete with robust debates that often attract differing perspectives ranging from critics who present his presidency as a complete disaster to skilled sycophants who depict him as being semi-divine. Yet what straddles the entire spectrum of the debates is that Botswana’s success or failure hinges principally on President Khama’s actions. It is being said repeatedly that Botswana has achieved economic prosperity on account of good stewardship not because of the absence of severe challenges. That being the case, it could be argued that the present problems bedevilling Botswana are a product of an impulsive and irresponsible leadership. Simply put, the problem with Botswana is President Ian Khama.
Honestly, Botswana is presently faced with far more crippling challenges than was the case about five years ago. Many of these cruel problems are the brain child of the political leadership hence are self-inflicted, containable and reversible. The argument of this discussion is that it is not so much the devastating effects of the global recession that continue to plague the economy but of the political leadership. Whereas it is true that the global recession did cause Botswana’s economy huge problems, Khama’s presidency has worsened the otherwise containable situation and at best ruined the economy. Obviously the recession was an enormous challenge and demanded Botswana to adopt survival mechanisms to offset its negative impacts particularly by promulgating intelligent and sustainable interventions to keep the economy afloat.
Unfortunately, this was not to be the case precisely due to a leadership style that is driven by self-interest and a desire by President Khama to establish a foothold on Botswana’s politics. The recession needed a selfless, creative and visionary leader who would transcend partisan politics and engage with opposition parties to tap into the wisdom of all people across the political divide and rally every single individual to articulate effective shock response tactics as well as play a part in supporting government’s efforts to mitigate the impacts of the recession.
Yet, typical of an indolent parasitic leadership, they opted to shout like crazed people who have just been rescued from a cage and proclaimed that they are not in a government of unity with the opposition ÔÇô call it fiery rhetoric or the rumblings of half beings intoxicated with power. It is when things are tough that one’s strength and ingenuity are put to test. Throwing money at the problems as is being done does little except to foment a chronic dependency culture that has generated poor people’s addiction with President Khama which perhaps explains why many people who are filthy poor are paradoxically the happiest.
There is no consistent pattern of a clear vision for economic recovery and advancement hence the economy suffers setback after setback and is actually limping out of the recession virtually on its own. Our economy is a like experimentation site where all sort of funny, thoughtless and primordial economic development models are piloted on poor people. These primitive schemes that are being presented as the magic wand are now literally pushing the economy to the brink of a disaster while of course satisfying Khama’s thirst for political power and control. There is no denying that social welfare schemes are helpful in cushioning poor people against starvation but such schemes terribly lacks vision, suitability and coherence and merely address symptoms of the problem.
It has to be noted that before everything else, President Khama sought to entrench his personal authority in ways that drastically weakened erstwhile efficient institutions of the state. His unapologetic purging of former President Mogae’s crew resulted in the exclusion of experienced technocrats who had kept the economy upright during trying times. This move effectively weakened the civil service so much that today bureaucratsÔÇô the foot soldiers of perseverance- cannot muster any moral courage to push through a policy that may cause inconvenience to President Khama’s political image no matter how beneficial it may be in the long term. His manipulation of economic policies in the service of personal interests to consolidate his political image continues to cause debilitating policy disorientation thus effectively undermining erstwhile sound economic management doctrines.
A military politician that is, President Khama is unapologetic about his preference for close friends and relatives for placement at key strategic institutions. While there is nothing inherently wrong with favouring relatives and friends as long as their appointments are meritorious, President Khama has tended to sacrifice merit for patronage and this has the effect of crowding national institutions with languid and clueless praise-singers leading to severe underperformance or wholesale failure and economic collapse.
An obvious theme to Khama’s presidency is centralization of power in the presidency office and this he achieved by marginalizing opponents and fomenting mistrust, jealousy and naked hatred amongst people so much that the nation is divided right in the middle and the country is literally disintegrating. The rationale for these divisive tricks was to set his flatterers against critics; sycophants against each other while he float above their senseless competition for silliness. This has made him appear rational and very powerful while at the same time weakening the collective will of the nation to fight against external and internal disturbances thus exposing the country to the tinniest disaster.
President Khama is essentially at war with his people. He is always fiery in his speeches that target the private media and the patriotism of those who beg to hold different opinions. His government is literally at war with civil servants through their unions. It is admissible that the relationship between employers and employees will always be turbulent and needs to be managed superbly. Only a pompous and misguided state president would taunt civil servants to stay away from work for as long as he cares, especially during a recession when all of us have to play a part to rescue the economy. This pomposity and political tyranny principally worsened the economic melt-down and it is hard to believe that our economy will ever while we still have the same baggage at the helm.
The self-indulging antics of a paranoid, attention seeker and clueless leader who is hardly bothered by public opinion is the reason Botswana’s economy is taking ages to recover. The poor handling of the effects of the global recession, upside down priorities, the spectre of a corrupt parasitic inner circle, blatant failure to own up to the realities of a lack of decent schooling have all combined to unleash the menace of presidential failure of monumental scale. In effect, while different problems will repeatedly pound our fragile economy, the biggest problem is the Head of State, President Khama. He is the clog in the wheel of progress towards economic recovery and prosperity.