07 Jun 2021

The Minister of Agriculture and Food Security, Mr Karabo Gare has said Batswana deserve to be told the truth about the negative impacts of COVID-19 on the economy of the country, which was likely to lead to government failing to implement some of its promises on time, or not at all.

Speaking at a Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) youth leadership seminar at Jwaneng on Saturday, Mr Gare indicated that the country’s economy, which was heavily reliant on diamonds, was hard hit at the time government was planning to grow it even better.

He said that calls for the leadership to work even harder, and that there was a need to diversify into non-mining activities, with his ministry being one of those that held hope for the resuscitation of the economy.

Mr Gare therefore implored farmers to put more effort in producing commodities such as cereal, milk, honey, pork and horticultural products as they were in short supply hence the high retail prices.

He said that his ministry would soon review programmes such as ISPAAD to ensure that farmers produce more output than what government had assisted them with.

“In order to be considered productive, you have to find returns much higher than what you spent, but the case with most farmers that we assist is that they normally get less profit than what government has pumped in, which literally means a loss,” he said.

Mr Gare said that should Batswana produce more for local market, then that would drastically reduce the country’s import bill.

Meanwhile various speakers at the seminar advised the BDP youth to always be cautious of what they post on social media as it would be perceived as the party’s view.

They were informed that Botho was one of the pillars that made BDP appealing to Batswana, and so should be guarded with care.

One of the party activists, Mr Alec Seametso also advised the youth not to join the party eyeing positions, but instead join voluntarily with a desire to serve anywhere.

“We have a problem with people joining because they want power, or because someone close to them was standing for a party position and they want to vote them. People that normally do that do not necessarily have the interests of the party at heart,” he said.

Mr Seametso also implored them not to allow themselves to be used by party elders in wars that they did not understand and that they were free to critic, advise and differ with fellow party members. 

The party’s secretary general and also Minister of Employment, Labour Productivity and Skills Development, Mr Mpho Balopi raised concern at what he said was deteriorating transition of power between Heads of States, which he said was currently bad.

He also applauded the civil service for its role in driving development projects since independence, but said that there was now a need to step up a gear, hence the initiative by President Dr Mokgweetsi Masisi to reset priorities. Ends