01 Dec 2019

The Alliance for Progressives (AP) has implored government to take the constitutional review exercise with the seriousness it deserves.

Responding to the State-of-Nation Address on November 28, AP Vice President who also represents the minority party in Parliament, Mr Wynter Mmolotsi said many Batswana were waiting patiently for consultations on the review exercise.

He said the AP wished for the overhaul of the archaic government system that concentrated power on the executive branch of government. In this regard, he said there was a need for a government system that was more inclusive, distributed power and respected the idea of checks and balances.  

Furthermore, he said his party stressed commitment to grow the economy aggressively on the strength of a new approach to mineral beneficiation,  radical food production, creative industries, ambitious infrastructure and digital overhaul, a vast expansion of tourism assets and niche-based manufacturing base.  

 “We must produce for the African and global market and we must reinvent our education and immigration system to churn the type of skills required to build this type of economy that is also inclusive and where all our people will be able to find meaningful and well-paying jobs,” he said.

He further said government should commit to giving ordinary citizens fairer access to land, adding that it should be an integral part of the ambition to genuinely create an inclusive economy.  

Mr Mmolotsi urged government to prioritise land servicing and land allocation, and that the turnaround time should be reduced to three years, adding that government could not talk about an inclusive economy when Batswana remained landless in a country with vast land.

He also called upon government to reduce expenditure on the security agencies, expensive government vehicles, glamorous buildings and projects that did not bring return on investment.

Mr Mmolotsi further called for a review of acts and statutes for DIS, DCEC and Ombudsman Act, adding that the DIS Act was a bad piece of legislation, which if not reviewed, would destroy the country. 

He argued that the DIS was a bad institution because its act gave employees the power to do as they pleased. 

“I wish to urge government to expedite the review of these acts as well as ensuring that they become autonomous institutions,” he stated.

With regards to women and children, he said they bored the brunt of being victims of a cruel culture of violence, adding that there was need to promulgate stringent laws that dealt with perpetrators of violence on women and children.

He also argued that government was not effective on the implementation of agreed projects.

He said most mega projects were awarded to foreign companies which repatriated most of the money to their countries because there were no exchange controls. 

He said government should unbundle projects so that Batswana could have a share in all mega projects that were carried out in the country.

On other issues, he said government should improve the delivery of primary health care and improve drug provision.

He also called for funding of political parties and making laws that criminalised sourcing of funds from outside the country, saying it may render government vulnerable to be controlled by corrupt syndicates outside the country.

Mr Mmolotsi said the AP condemned automatic succession as it gave the ruling party an advantage all the time because opposition parties have to contend with a competitor who was in power before he got elected.

With regards to his constituency, he stated that the city of Francistown was slowly becoming a ghost town as mines which employed multitudes of people have since closed.

He also advocated for the establishment of Francistown Economic Diversification unit (FEDU) to focus on diversifying the economy of the city, which he said had a potential to become a transport and logistics hub as a gateway to markets in the north like Zimbabwe, Zambia, DRC, Angola and Namibia. ENDS