05 Feb 2015

The Leader of the Opposition, Mr Duma Boko, says Batswana have continued to linger in poverty in a country of economic prosperity. 

Responding to the 2015/16 budget proposals, Mr Boko said Batswana were bystanders in the economic affairs of their country. 

“I need not remind the nation that most of our citizens are systematically handicapped by poverty, deliberately consigned to the social and economic backwaters,” said Mr Boko, who is Gaborone Bonnington North MP. 

He said according to World Bank estimates, 80 per cent of Botswana’s wealth was owned by foreigners, while of the remaining 20 per cent, only two per cent was owned by indigenous Batswana with the rest belonging to naturalized citizens. 

Mr Boko said many families were unsure of their next meal adding that these levels of poverty mocked any 'legal fictions'that ranked Batswana as enjoying the rights enshrined in the Constitution. 

“These levels of poverty and neglect are a violation of human rights,” he said.  Mr Boko said his party, as the government in waiting, offered Batswana an alternative path towards achieving prosperity for all. 

“We can show this to be true without dwelling on the criticisms, without pulling others down but by the sheer power of our ideas around what is possible and by the determination of the many citizen who are seeking a fresh and new government,” he said. 

This, he said, would be done by establishing sound and robust governance systems, to provide a seedbed on which any national budget would flourish and inspire prosperity. 

He said their government would cultivate an environment for superb creativity and bring to bear innovative ways not only of the government system doing much more with less but of nudging new non-tradition avenues of economic growth and inclusive economic empowerment. 

In 2019, they would forge a culture of prioritisation based on transparent and rigorous processes to reaching fair resource allocation decisions.  Mr Boko said their expenditure will also be in true alignment with their national developmental objectives. 

He further said they intended to develop an industrial policy that would be aligned to other policies such as a stable and supportive macroeconomic and regulatory framework, appropriate skills development and education systems which are readily integrated with needs of industrial policy. 

They would also provide reliable infrastructure and significant investment in research and development.  He urged the government to consider raising the old-age pension to a minimum of P500.

The UDC proposed an additional P500 million to purchase land and embark on public private partnerships (PPP) for the servicing to make it available to a large number of Batswana. 

The UDC leader also said they would allocate an additional P20 million for the training of the police to enhance its capabilities and capacity as a professional law enforcement agency. 

He said they would spend an additional P200 million for further PPP research and development, commercialisation and joint ventures in potentially niche sectors of Botswana such as food, medicines, material sciences, coal beneficiation, solar technology. 

Mr Boko said they would also set up funding for Small and Medium Enterprises (SMMEs) to offer grants for technology enhancement and to assist them to access foreign markets and government procurement opportunities.  ENDS