Maintaining a nation and a government that serves all the people, consistent with principles of justice, fair play and opportunity doesn’t happen by itself. Someone has to look after it. Today there are two visions for Botswana. One is of a society more divided between the (haves) and the (have-nots)’ – a country in which the rich will be living in gated communities while the rest live in a world marked by insecurity, mediocre public education, health etc. The control of the economy will totally be in the hands of the foreigners. The other is of a society where the gap between the (haves) and (have-nots) has been narrowed, where there is a sense of shared destiny, common commitment to opportunity and fairness. (See national Vision 2036 documents). The people of the land will be having some form of grip on their economy.
We have it on our hands to choose which Botswana we want. We do not even need to write anything new. We have some, if not all the pillars, of our previous national Vision 2016 to re-live. We have the current Vision 2036 to deliver practically. The President’s RESET agenda is also an option. Infact the mindset change pillar under the RESET agenda is our starting point in building a Botswana that is not characterised by high income and wealth inequality. Mindset change is not necessary for citizens and workers only, it also important that our leaders do the same. Over the past decades, the response of our nation’sleaders when it comes to inequities has been consistently inadequate. Worse still, our country’s political discourse has been sinking imaginably low over the last several years, moving away from the unifying narrative of the founding fathers of this nation to abject levels of distrust, hatred and bigotry.
Our leaders thus need a mindset change if they are to change the minds of Batswana. They have to work even harder not just to build social cohesion but also to promote a new single national identity. Central to the crisis in our country are the massive divisions and inequalities exacerbated by the high cost of living that we have been experiencing since the beginning of the year. Given that our inflation is still high, those in power should act swiftly to revamp all aspects of our society, economy – from education to social contracts and working conditions. In a society without an adequate safety net like ours, run-away inflation is undesirable because it will leave nothing but a hard landing for those that happen to fall. Without necessarily repeating a known fact, the socio-economic situation facing Batswana today is dire. Soaring inflation has taken the price of basic goods and services out of reach for many. The mood on the streets is sour. The drone of Batswana’s cry masks the lost opportunity of building an inclusive economy and society as per our national Vision 2036. This crisis has been long in the making: the product of many decades of helping foreigners accumulates wealth at the expense of the rightful owners. The end product has been rich state, poor citizens. This is all bad news. No one likes bad news or let alone to be its bearer. But if this is reality, then we have to talk about it – even if it’s uncomfortable or could come at a risk of being labeled xenophobic. We live in a democracy, so let us not just talk but also put some action to some of the pledges we have made in the past. Part of the action could entail developing a ‘culture of enterprise’ amongst our people, the kind that rewards individual as well as collective initiatives and innovations. The first step towards the creation of such a culture lies in education. Our basic education curriculum should be revised so that it reflects our aspirations to be an entrepreneurial society.
The new curriculum will not just produce the best entrepreneurs but also result in well informed customers. By well-informed I mean the kind that would know the Pros and Cons of supporting local business enterprises. The end result would be a socio-economic climate that encourages a high rate of business startup and survival leading to an overall growth of the SME sector. A well-crafted curriculum, whether at basic level or through outreaches, would result in a sympathetic and entrepreneurial environment for our SMEs. The end result is not just economic growth but also the renewal of social contract between the state and its citizens. As seen in other countries, developing human resources is at the heart of how a government can build trust and promote lasting social change. While government leaders alone cannot create that ‘enterprise culture’, their actions can destroy or facilitate it. Without being able to speak the language of economics, it is hard for our people to raise a meaningful voice on key decisions made by our leaders. Regrettably, the economic inequality we find ourselves in now was partially sponsored by this failure to build capacity of citizens in terms of developing enterprises as well as raising the level of financial literacy. At this point, our way out is to rebuild trust and write a new social contract – two things that are more critical during times of economic recovery. This is because despite our financial literacy levels, Batswana have lately been very vocal on issues relating to wealth creation. They are at a point where they are actually aware that they continue to be fed crumbles of their country’s economic pie. Our leaders also surely know what need to be done. They can chose to turn a blind eye on the immediate needs and let the boat sink with the citizens or do something to avoid unrest in the future. At the end of the day, the #Bottomline is that the state of our nation is undesirable hence the need to invest more on Batswana by building their capacity to reason, to identify opportunities that will not just create wealth for them but also find ways of sustaining it.
