The Failed Opposition
The Botswana opposition has really failed for 43 years to challenge the Botswana Democratic Party.They have a tendency of shootign themselves in the foot whenever we are looking at elections. How many times have the Botswana National Front(BNF) had splits? It was heralded as the powerful main opposition in the 90′s? So, far we have seen the birth of the Botswana Congress Party(BCP) in 1998 & then the birth of New Democratic Front(NDF) in 2003. It looks like every new party come from this socialist ideological party. The party used to be the bedrock of upcoming young politician who were cult followers of their founding father the USSR educated Dr Kenneth Koma.
The opposition don’t bring any new ideas to the Botswana political arena. So, far all they have done or say is say how the current Botswana government led by the Botswana Democratic Party have failed to provide better education, health, jobs and infrastructure. When the Botswana Democratic Party took over after independence in 1966, Botswana was the fourth poorest country in the world. They immediately faced challenges of droughts and femine. They managed to steer the ship through this hard times & eventually there was the discovery of diamonds that helped them a lot. The fact that they managed to share this with the rest of the country is a miracle in itself as a lot of African governments have a tendency of stealing the country’s wealth and stashing all this money in foreign bank accounts.
When the Sir Seretse Khama led government took over, only a small percentage of Batswana were educated. One of their main targets was the provision of basic education as they guaranteed all students ten years up to junior certificate. So far the results have been there for all to see, at-least 90% of the population can read and write. If you were to ask the opposition what they will do different they can’t give you a straight answer, they look up to the sky because they cant provide us with sufficient answers. Although the was a re-introduction of school fees in 2006, the government still provides full scholarships with living expenses to any Botswana citizen for their university studies.
How many governments especially in Sub-Saharan Africa have tackled the HIV/Aids scorn like the Botswana government have done, especially in Africa? Even the resource rich South Africa didn’t do it until almost close to 3 million people had lost their lives. There is no better provision of health care than fighting HIV/Aids with free anti retro-viral drugs which can be found at a lot of health care centers throughout the country. Which makes one wonder, what would the opposition do more than that? Most of rural Botswana have health posts & other areas have mobile clinics that visit the areas atleast twice a week whilst in some parts of Africa people spend months on end without seeing a doctor let alone a nurse. What are the further improvements that the opposition offer to the health care?
So far the opposition have been promising that they will build community malls and provide more jobs as the money from our foreign reserves needs to be spent for the improvement of Batswana lives. The current president, Ian Khama is doing exactly that and they are already complaints that its the misuse of state coffers. When they build this malls, where will the money come from? Which National Development Plans will they be using? They should learn to come up with better practical ideas that can be implemented. They talk about raising money for pensioners, where will that extra deficit come from or which department are they going to cut it from? You cant just criticize someone else’s point yet you dont have anything to offer. For every problem you see, they must be a solution. Even the leader of the main opposition Otsweletse Moupo won’t be coming back to parliament after the elections because people in his constituency don’t have confidence in his abilities. If people in his constituency don’t believe him to be a good leader, how should a whole country do? His recent interview sums it up nicely that he doesn’t have it in him to lead:
BTV REPORTER: Rre Moupo fa party ya gago e ka fenya ditlhopho ka di 16,re solofele eng mo go wena. ( Mr Moupo, If your party wins the elections on the 16th, what should be expected from you?)
MR MOUPO: Ke a go tswelela ke dira gore lentswe la kganetso la utlwala ko Palamenteng(I am going to continue being the voice of the opposition in parliament)
BTV REPORTER: Yang jaanong Rre Moupo ka o tla bo o tsere puso?(How Mr Moupo, since you will be the government?)
The opposition have been in serious decline and I have come to realise that the opposition don’t offer Batswana much. Then Batswana go to the polls with the notion that why fix it if it ain’t broken. But then do you believe that the opposition can offer something differen’t? Some people believe that opposition parties are a joke, do you agree with them? Could the failure of the opposition to unite also be a factor?
I for one believe that yes most of them are jokes, the likes of BNF, NDF, MELS and the likes. You have to however concede to the fact that while the ruling party has done a lot, it still left a lot to be desired. for example it took them more than 20 years after the discovery of diamonds to figure that the diamonds can do better for the country if they are processed locally. BDP also is in the habit of rejecting perfectly good motions in parliament simply because they are tabled by the opposition only for them to table them later as their own at a later stage.
It is counter productive to shun good ideas simply because they are from someone different.
BCP remains the beacon hope for an effective opposition party. And by the way, I am also against the idea of blind loyalty, a characteristic we find among most BDP candidates. cant people just stand up for what they believe in?
Professor Thomas Tlou wrote a book about the history of Botswana, it left a lot to be desired, but it was easy for him to pass it as a true representation of the history of Botswana because there was not many of them.
My point here is it is easy to note the good that the BDP led government has done over the years because it found a clean slate. Starting something is easier than continuing the legacy, thats why you find today the BDP has been making one blunder after another, they are failing to maintain their own standards and as a result they are always too busy praising themselves and wallowing in self admiration that they cant do much to improve on what they have done so far.
On the issue of National Development plans, those plans were developed by the BDP led government for the nation, not for the BDP. If the opposition wins, it will use the same NDPs or change them as they see fit for them to deliver their mandate.
What we dont need is a change of government, we however need new ideas to help stimulate the government to reach new heights. If to archive this we need a new party to lead, so be it. there is no point keeping a set of people who have reached their climax/appex of the development hill, the only way they are going from there is down, why not pass the baton to a new fresh set to push them higher?
Interesting points you make there but then they did eventually realize that diamonds can be processed locally before they pushed for that. Every country is like that, look at Nigeria and their Oil Fields, they are still sending their Dutch drilled oil to the Netherlands for processing but the government is now pushing for them to be processed locally.
From the motions ones, i am not sure, pass me a motion that was raised by a member of opposition, got rejected and then came back by a BDP member? Although BCP remains the beacon of hope, they also haven’t done enough to show their hand.
the motion for declaration of asset and interests was tabled by the opposition, I think the BCP, it was rejected flat out, it was later tabled by Joy Phumaphi if not Gladys Kokorwe only for it to be accepted but never persued. she was sent on ambassadorial duties for reasons best left alone. its here http://allafrica.com/stories/200711260005.html, it dont say who tabled it first but just know it was first tabled by the opposition and rejected.
I think it will be interesting to note that had it not been for the opposition arguing the need to have the locals benefiting from the processes of the diamonding, it would not be the case. Domkrag has made life better for all of us, but in the process has produced a nation of lame lazy sitting duck who can do nothing for themselves but prefer to be spoon fed through their programmes that only benefit the few and impoverish the rest.
Domkrag found Batswana a self sustaining nation, free education and free health care for all was a good thing, but to what possible merit was the need to pay people to plough their own fields through ALDEP. Land boards and land tribunals systematically seize land from the local to allocate it rationally – preference being given to the foreigners while the locals are left in the lurch. Domkrag created a situation where the economy of the country is controlled by the foreigners hence we always dance to their tune. Just to name a few of BDP’s mistakes that are noted by the opposition. Something the ruling party will never admit.
Of course the solution would be to start doing the opposite, as it stands right now it wont happen until BDP reviews their policies. and they cant do that erratically because they will chase away the foreign investors the so much fought to get here in the first place. The opposition knows this, that’s why they thrive on it and at every turn it looks like all they can ever do is criticize but its the truth.
I still maintain that Government change is not essential, but a new set of minds to innovate further. unfortunately the innovators are with the opposition and it will be a while before they win. until then, their ideas are shelved. where is the progress there?
Who tabled the motion first from the opposition? Fact is Phumaphi is the one who is credited with starting the motion and she wasn’t sent away on ambassadorial duties, she resigned because she got a better offer as assistant director of the UN organ WHO.
Phumaphi, a former Member of Parliament for Francistown East, resigned her cabinet position a few years ago to join the World Health Organisation as Assistant Director General for Family and Community Health Department. – http://www.sundaystandard.info/search/search_item.php?NewsID=866
She is remembered for a motion calling for the declaration of assets by MPs, ministers, permanent secretaries and other senior public servants in a public register accessible to the media and the public. The motion has been deferred ever since. – http://www.mmegi.bw/index.php?sid=1&aid=5&dir=2009/September/Tuesday29.
Masire states in his book – Memoirs of an African Democrat, that its something they have been discussing with De Beers ever since but they couldnt implement it because of Botswana’s literacy rate at the time. He says its one of the things that had created the standoff with de beers in the late 1980′s as they held their stock of diamonds as they decided what to do next then they ended up buying shares into de beers.
For the provision of ALDEP, after independence with the majority of people migrating to the urban areas, government found in him to promote agriculture more & thus came up with this incentive to help people cover costs of seeds and stuff. Thats why they even pushed for people to buy donkeys and ploughs at subsidised rates where the costs where shared between people and government at 50-50. I believe it was a good scheme.
Show me an economy which is not controlled by outsiders especially in capitalist economies except for communist China and Formerly communist Russia. The rest of the economies are controlled by Foreigners. The US economy is held by Jews and Muslims. Japan & S. Korea are helped by the fact that they are a manufacturing super powers. The opposition can make noise by saying the economy is held by foreigners but then what will they do, take those businesses and give them to Batswana?
Noted, maybe I was misinformed as far as the motion is concerned, I will do my own research and I will get back to you with the results. I stand corrected.
Africa as a whole has been subjected to exploitation by foreigners, it is painful in Botswana’s case because that exploitation was a result of the government’s doing. My point is that most of the government’s schemes were not bearing fruit because of wrong implementation and for the wrong reasons. schemes like the FAP, ALDEP and the likes. They were counter productive and backwards. The drought relief programme still remain elusive to me. Im still trying to find its purpose. Paying people for making roads that are going to be washed away by the rains over and over again was just sheer stupidity, that money could have been used for something else.
the government helped people buy donkeys, why didnt they help them buy tractors,Its not like they couldn’t afford it, why didnt they promote what Batswana already had. More education in the agricaltural sector was what was needed back then because it was what Batswana knew best.
The goverment instead of encouraging the people to grow enough food to supply the country and the region, they opted for the cheap and short term solution of asking investors to bring their grains and food here, the people stopped even subsistance farming. I do however agree that persistent droughts were a factor, but teaching the whole nation to depend on free bees even in good times was a bad move
There is something called Botswana Agricultural Marketing Board, from the name you would think that this organization’s mandate was to market Botswana’s agricultural products outside the country creating a viable economic opportunity for local farmers, but because of the nature of the government that emphasized more on profits that developmental expenditure, this organization is nothing but a place where local farmers take the remainders of their harvest for storage at a fee, only for them to come back and buy it from them at a later stage at a higher price as seeds. this my friend is called polite imperative, stealing from people politely.
Botswana could have borrowed a leaf from Cuba, of course we are a capitalist nation by nature, but a little daring and risk taking with a strive for complete independence from the bigger economies would have helped our innovative spirit.
It was ok to take the risk back then, we didn’t matter then, after all we were still just a desert wasteland.
FAP would have been a success if you guys had come up with better projects than chicken production. The problem is not the government scheme but the masses which are not risk takers.
How did the government exploit Botswana’s economy for foreigners? All the government has been trying to do is bring in foreign investment and employment for its citizens. A lot of shops are franchising, how many Batswana have jumped into the bandwagon? Because the people in the country are narrow-minded and think for now not the long term, thr is nothing the government can do.
How many Batswana you knw who stay in rural areas and can come up with P60 000 since they have to come up with half the money? Donkeys range from P400 to P1000 which can be afforded by anyone who has a few thebes to spare. Education has been there just that a lot of Batswana opted for the city life thats why government started ARAB and ALDEP to stop this slide. The government didn’t teach anybody to depend on freebies but everyone thinks that the word freedom & independence means that you get stuff on a silver platter hence problems right now in South Africa because they dont want to work, they want the government to do things for them.
The BAMB thing is all down to westernization, what happened to the old way of storing grain. When the government started the program it was actually meant to lead to long term food sustainability but it never did hence the recurring circus you talk about above.
The government has done all it could but Batswana have failed to come to the party. What leaf could they have borrowed from Cuba and what would it have done?
Cuba focused on educating its nation, making them self sustaining, 43 years down the line it doesn’t make sense that we are still importing services like doctors, teachers. we still use Chinese and Indian city planners. where are the educated that have been taught by the system? they are all over the planet if they can, you know why, because the government cannot provide competitive and better working condition. A government that has taught people that its not good enough unless the super powers say it is. It does not encourage innovativeness.
You ask me about FAP and chicken production. It was the government’s doing, you dont just wake up one day and tell people that you will give them money for businesses and emphasize chicken production and hope that they will opt for something else especially if its the poor and disenfranchised in the rural areas.
The government found it cool to build an ostrich abattoir for one guy’s ostriches and no one had the sense to put up an abattoir for all the chickens and they hoped one Indian dude would provide the market for all of them, simple economic principles, if the supply is higher than the demand the prices go down hence the failure of the chicken industry, because of the monopoly created by the government.
Do not blame the people, the government was the one spending the money, it was its responsibility to make sure it was well spent. There was no party for batswana to go to. Create a monopoly and think that Batswana will survive you are mistaken. It will fail
People chose the wrong professions in this country. You know it & i know it. Teachers as a whole have changed, there are a lot of Batswana teachers now but we still lack in other areas like D&T and ART. The government didnt do anything wrong, he said the money is available, start businesses but at the end of the day you didn’t choose to start good businesses. Thats why they found that FAP was a failure, they stopped it and brought CEDA on board which atleast look for sound business plans. They showed that they have learned from their mistakes. At the end of the day everybody makes a mistake and learn from it. How many Batswana do you know that study city planning and courses along those lines?
When that abattoir was built, they had started pushing people for Ostrich Farming and they are a lot of ostrich farmers in Botswana currently. We want you to start a business so that you provide employement to fellow batswana, so we give you the money. Give the opposition’s mandate on job creation, diversification and batswana empowerment. There is nothing there. So, they can’t really point a finger.