19 Aug 2021

On a day when the winds typifying August weather had calmed, Mr Elias Magosi disembarked the presidential jet, OK1, at Seretse Khama International Airport tasked with a new mission. 

As President Dr Mokgweetsi Masisi noted during a media conference immediately after the Botswana delegation returned from the 41st SADC summit in Lilongwe, Malawi, Mr Magosi now had a larger mandate. 

From heading a civil service servicing a nation of 2.4 million as Permanent Secretary to the President (PSP), he was now the administrative head of an organisation serving 350 million people as SADC executive secretary, Dr Masisi said. 

In an exclusive interview with BOPA, Mr Magosi said his mission included ensuring that SADC became more accessible to  citizens of southern Africa. 

“I would love to take SADC to the people. 

Batswana don’t know the day to day functions of SADC, South Africans don’t know it. But people across the region need to understand their organisation, the projects being undertaken, and our people would then be in a position to understand how they could participate and benefit,” he said. 

Mr Magosi is the 7th SADC executive secretary after Arthur Blumeris and Simba Makoni of Zimbabwe as well as Kaire Mbuende, Prega Ramsay, Tomaz Salomao, Stergomena Lawrence-Tax of Namibia, Mauritius, Mozambique and Tanzania respectively.

“I am grateful to President Masisi who spearheaded my campaign and to the many others who over the past year made the effort to lend their support. My intention is to take the values of Botswana - honesty, integrity, democracy, the rule of law- to my work at SADC and to continue with the good work that my predecessor Dr Lawrence-Tax has been doing,” he says. 

But what does the job entail?

“You lead the administration of the secretariat of the institution. Then you are a chief diplomat, working with the various heads of state and government and through our various SADC organs, to promote peace, stability and economic cooperation in the region. You also work with other regional bodies from across the world and independent cooperating partners, pursuing funding and skills for the betterment of the region,” he says. 

With Mr Magosi’s appointment coinciding with Botswana’s young athletes flying the flag high at the World Youth Athletics Under 20 Championships in Nairobi, Kenya, social media was abuzz with the question of what the SADC position meant for the average Motswana. 

“The average Motswana should be proud, this is a first for us to assume this position.

What the President has said is that we should work on having Batswana take up positions in different international organisations and we should be supportive of each other. There is technical expertise, financial resources and jobs from all over the world that could accrue to us if we go on to prove we are capable as a people,” says Mr Magosi.

The former PSP now prepares to serve SADC nation states with equal vigour and to assist in calming the political and economic storms that regulalry emerge in different parts of southern Africa in order for tranquility to prevail - much like the windless August day of his triumphant return.BOPA