30 Sep 2018

President Mokgweetsi Masisi says his recent visit to the United States of America was an eye opener and will benefit Botswana immensely. 

President Masisi said this when addressing members of the media on September 29 upon his return from the US where he held high level talks in various cities and participated in the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) for the first time as president.

“I went to Florida State University because it is one of the leading universities in the US in certain fields. We engaged with the university and established working understanding for possible collaborations in where they have great expertise. But one of the most distinctive things about them which I asked we meet specifically about was the area of leadership development at tertiary level,” he said.

President Masisi and his delegation also visited the Disney World in Orlando where there was a business enterprise that they were interested in.

“The reason we went to Orlando  is because it is a widely visited location in America. Orlando and its metropolis attract more than 70 million visitors in a year and these are visitors who come to spend money. It is integrated and much clustered, hoteling, restauranting, transport logistics and services of the construction sector. What we were trying to do is find out if they could help us not only through the private sector but also through our public sector to  be service oriented. I am happy to report that they are willing to do that,” he added.

President Masisi said they went to Texas Children’s Hospital and saw the partnership that started Botswana’s Prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT) early programmes in HIV treatment and management. He said they engaged with world’s leading professors who were dedicated to helping the Sir Ketumile Masire Teaching Hospital build an oncology unit for children.

“They will bring those treatments to Botswana because they are realizing success rates that are in excess of 80 percent, when they treat children who have early cancer and other blood illnesses in Africa the average is in 90 percent of children who develop those end up dying,” he noted.

President Masisi highlighted that a leading pediatric oncologist at the Texas Children’s Hospital gave up his senior roles to dedicate his time  to the envisaged oncology unit that is going to be starting as an excellence programme on HIV treatment at the Sir Ketumile Masire Teaching Hospital in collaboration with Texas Children’s Hospital.

President Masisi said they visited New Jersey and engaged with Rutgers University management. He said the university was leading in competencies in the field of science and engineering. He said they were interested in Rutgers sharing knowledge at tertiary level with institutions such as BUAN and BIUST.

Finally president Masisi participated at the 73rd Session of the UNGA which was preceded by the Nelson Mandela Peace Summit where he also made a presentation. 

President Masisi gave a keynote address at the 2018 International Conservation Caucus Foundation (ICCF) gala dinner in Washington DC.

“Many of the questions we had to contend with and dealt with as best as we could was the false allegations that 87 elephants were poached in Botswana in a short space of time. We were able to demonstrate that we took it very seriously and we still do any incidents of poaching. We made a point that besides the fact that it was alarming that this was alleged to have taken place in Botswana where there is very heavy military presence we had to wonder what the motive may have been because as it turned out following our investigations we established that there were only able to establish that there were nineteen carcasses that could be found, if there are any more there are certainly not in the numbers that were alleged and the rest will follow, we will see what to do next,” he said.

After addressing the UNGA, President Masisi was invited by DeBeers to open a flagship store in New York. He said it was useful to visit as he was reassured of the partnership between Botswana and the diamond company. ENDS