09 Feb 2017

Member of Parliament for Gaborone Bonnington South, Mr Ndaba Gaolathe says the opposition believes that government is content with a mode of ‘conservative incrementalism’ when dealing with national budgetary issues.

Responding to the budget speech on behalf of the Leader of Opposition (LOO) on Wednesday, Mr Gaolathe said government believes that tweaking allocations here and there should at some point cause a positive economic reaction.

“The evidence is clear that framers of the budget paid little attention to aligning budget allocations to their own professed policy priorities. For example, the expenditure towards vocational and technical education does not reflect a government as bullish on intentions to build a formidable technical education system,” he said.

He explained that for a government that has invested so much on plans to drive new engines of economic activity by way of creating clusters such as diamond, tourism/agriculture and financial/services, there is cause for alarm in both the budget’s attitude to providing performance information on these clusters and on the budgetary allocations to the areas that would best represent the realisation of these policies.

“There is no performance information on whether our plans to improve our education system are working. There is no performance information to shed light on whether the quality of our health care system is improving or ailing.  There is no performance data to show if there has been value for money in the procurement choices our government made on the construction of major roads, dams or buildings - and therefore there is no telling if we have wasted billions of Pula or not,” he said.

Furthermore, Mr Gaolathe pointed out that the budget system lacks transparency to establish how effective or efficient the public expenditure system is, which made it difficult to determine the extent of how government spends wisely on goods and services.

As a result of the opaqueness in accounting for public expenditure, the legislator said there is evidence of shifting goal-posts where plans were announced to commence or complete, only to be told that those plans never actually got off the ground, citing as an example, the transport integration system meant to manage traffic congestion.

Instead of the ‘conservative incrementalism’ mode practice, Mr Gaolathe advised that there should be a focused economic development programme based on building excellence in sectors such as tourism, diamonds, cattle and arable agriculture, financial and other services, with which the country can be globally competitive.

“Focus has multiple benefits. It sends a clear signal to local and foreign investors of the investment areas we hope to build scale and excellence in, distinguishing us from rivals. Focus allows us to send a clear signal,” he said. In tourism, he explained that there is need to expand the tourism hub in the Okavango-Chobe-Makgadikgadi triangle and develop the South East (Gaborone and surroundings) as a regional meetings, incentives, conventions and exhibitions centre.

Regarding diamonds, he said there is need to establish Botswana as one of the top 10 diamond trading centres, while on cattle and arable agriculture, the legislator said there is need to develop a full cattle value chain in cattle-growing regions. Additionally, he said the country should develop large-scale arable agriculture in Pandamatenga, Borolong, eastern block and other selected areas.

On financial and other services, he said there is need to expand the financial and other business service industries by leveraging local assets and focusing on export markets to create both wide low-skilled employment of youth and narrow high-skilled employment for qualified professionals.

“We believe that funding should be concentrated in these sectors. Additionally, we should emphasise investing in the necessary foundation to support the development of these sectors, particularly in skills development and training as well as building the enabling infrastructure to support them, namely railways to support the growth of agriculture and industry; power and water security; and high-speed broadband for all Botswana citizens,” Mr Gaolathe said.

He also called for a re-think of the entire social security sector to accommodate every citizen and find ways to finance the sector in a sustainable way.

MP Gaolathe also said there is need to cut expenses on military aircraft and Directorate of Intelligence expenses and instead spend more on housing guarantees and infrastructure (including railways, dual north-south carriageway, high-speed internet), education and the establishment of special funds to fund businesses aligned to economic strategy including a fund to finance the revival of mining in Selebi Phikwe. ENDS