07 Feb 2016

For Botswana to progress, industrialisation needs to be put at the forefront of the national developmental agenda, the Member of Parliament (MP) for Tati East, Mr Biggie Butale has told Parliament.

Responding the 2016 budget speech, Mr Butale urged government to come up with a coherent industrial development strategy.

“We have been talking about industrialisation since the time of the Financial Assistance Policy (FAP).  But throughout these years we have not really seen progress in the development of the manufacturing sector and it is important that we now work towards bringing this ideal to fruition,” Mr Butale said.

He added that it was imperative that Botswana used its raw materials for beneficiation in order to create jobs and generate income, using parastatals, who would be given set targets and specific mandates.

“We also need greater local ownership of companies such as Debswana and BCL, then leverage on their goodwill and systems to compete with some of the biggest mining companies in the world.  I feel that as a country, we have been giving foreign capital too much shareholding of our mineral resources, the time is right for us to improve domestic ownership these flagship companies of our mining industry,” Mr Butale said.

MP for Ghanzi North, Mr Noah Salakae on one hand decried what he considered exclusion of the majority of the people from the mainstream economy.

“Current policies are geared in such a way that they encourage business people who seek tenders from the state, who are only a select few.  This leaves the majority of the people as spectators in the national economy, and as such we face challenges such as unemployment and poverty,” Mr Salakae said.

He said programmes that the state relied upon to in relation to the poorer sections of the population were piece meal as they did not address poverty in a sustainable manner, but rather temporarily cushion its effects.

Mr Salakae said Botswana’s population was small and thus the state should be expected to adequately plan to cater for the economic needs of every citizen.

“Our population stands at just 2 million people and the labour force is only about 240 000.  If we had proper economic planning we would not be facing the levels of poverty we currently do,” Mr Salakae said.

“One other area our country needs to address is education.  The Revised National Policy on Education (RNPE) adopted by the government in the 1990s following the recommendations of the Kedikilwe Commission was never properly implemented.  We need to ensure that we produce good quality products from our education system,” Mr Salakae said. Ends