15 Jun 2022

Political leaders in government have been urged to lead from the front in order to ensure success of the Reset Agenda.

Officiating at a four-day cabinet retreat in Maun yesterday, President Dr Mokgweetsi Masisi said all political leaders were aware of the implications of failing to deliver a transformed Botswana.

Stating that political leaders were the mainstay and captains of ministries, departments and agencies that they led, he urged them to collaborate with accounting officers to transform the lives of Batswana

“Let us undertake not just a cursory survey of where we stand vis-a-vis where we should be. Let us draw a line in the sand that extols us, revokes the pessimistic spirit and replace it with the vanguard of political leadership joined at the hip with the resoluteness and excellence of accounting officers,” said President Masisi.

He told his audience to make ‘stop, start and improve’ choices and actions to move the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) annual growth rate from 4.3 per cent to 5.7 per cent over the remaining planning period.

Dr Masisi said it was not impossible to qualitatively improve productivity and innovativeness through collaborative partnerships and entrepreneurship.

 “We denounce the idle narrative that has held our people back as a disinterested and unqualified mass in both the industry of their hands and the zeal of their mental faculties and attitudes that influence their work ethic,” he said.

Dr Masisi reminded the retreat attendants that they had set themselves goals that were equal to their ambitions and emphasised the need for boldness in order to propel the country to upper income status.

That was why, he said, for national development plans,  NDP 12 and NDP 13, annual performance plans would focus on high impact flagship policies, projects, products, programmes and initiatives as well as associated enabling laws.

The President recalled that at the first cabinet retreat in 2019, participants bound themselves to the strategic thrusts and initiatives aimed at driving the national transformation agenda.

He pointed out that last year’s retreat yielded the Reset and Reclaim Agenda which set five priorities among them mindset that needed to change in order to inject momentum in the development trajectory.

President Masisi said the political leadership  was not encumbered by COVID-19 and came up with measures and approaches to combat the pandemic.

“We delivered the force and effect of 61 per cent of a fully vaccinated population and are tracking towards attaining the World Health Organisation target of 70 per cent coverage (fully vaccinated) of the entire population by July 2022,” he said.

The President stated that government had embarked on digitisation as the epicentre of the national development agenda. 

Through several initiatives, young people were being empowered, which would go a long way in ensuring that they contributed meaningfully to Botswana’s economic development, he said. The new Ministry of Entrepreneurship, he said, should be a dynamite for unleashing the desired socio-economic transformations.

President Masisi stated that Botswana now emphasised value addition and economic diversification. However, he said the fundamental principles of development remained the same.

They included belief in bottom-up development planning, consultation   and the continual flexibility of the country’s technocrats.

“...Deployment of competent personnel to drive the state machinery should, of necessity, promote and enhance good governance, peace and security as the outcomes of a responsive, resilient, effective and efficient, people-centric government” hence the recent reorganisation of government portfolios, said Dr Masisi.BOPA