11 Oct 2018

President Mokgweetsi Masisi says Botswana has, through its shrewd management of resources and innate determination by its forefathers, moved from bottom of the socio economic wrung to the middle income economy.

President Masisi presented the Botswana story when giving a lecture on: Prudent Management of Resources at the Said Business School of Oxford University on Wednesday.

“Some observers even went to the extent of questioning the viability of our existence as a sovereign state.There was little to encourage many people to see reason in such logic.  However, with determination, our forefathers were not deterred from going ahead with the project,” he said.

He said this was testimony to the fortitude of the architects of present day Botswana, that ‘where there is a will there is a way’.

The President said the existence of natural resources, that Botswana has been handsomely endowed with, had been people centered, whereby proceeds accrued from them were used to turnaround the socio-economic status of all citizens.

Furthermore, President Masisi relayed to all and sundry that at the inception of the Republic of Botswana in 1966, a deliberate choice was made that every deposit and other riches found on the land would be regarded as a collective good; an arrangement that remains in place even today.

This, he said, was born out of  realization that not every piece of territory will be equally gifted as such a consensus was reached for resources to be held in custody and utilised by the central government for the benefit of all citizens.

To better manage and achieve this, President Masisi relayed that the forefathers decided to take the route of a constitutional and multi-party democracy premised on the supremacy of respect for the rule of law.

“We realised and were convinced that a democratic discourse, as has always been tradition throughout our respective communities and system of governance predating the independence era, was ideal to take us forward,” he said.  ENDs