12 Feb 2025

Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC) government needs to coordinate the country’s economy differently from the previous Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) government.  

In his response to the budget speech in Parliament yesterday, Leader of the Opposition Mr Dumelang Saleshando said Botswana Congress Party (BCP) hoped for more from the budget presented by the Vice President and Minister of Finance, Mr Ndaba Gaolathe.

However, Mr Saleshando said the BCP fully supported some aspects of the budget including the reform of the public finance system and government procurement models as well as the pledge to use renewable green energy such as solar.

The P300 child grant for 12 months and increment of the old age pension to P1 400, which he said was close to the BCP pledge of a P1 500 pension, were also commendable, although he said they had hoped UDC fulfilled its promise of P1 800.

Mr Saleshando also said fiscal consolidation meant to reduce financial leakage and growing revenue streams was another aspect of the budget the BCP was in agreement with. 

He said one way of reducing wastage would be for Specially Elected Members of Parliament and Specially Nominated Councilors to stop receiving constituency and ward allowances.

He called on the UDC government to have targets such as the number of jobs they set out to create per year, and stop the casualisation of labour, by having qualified temporary teachers and internship workers being hired as permanent and pensionable employees. 

Mr Saleshando said he had hoped key areas would be addressed, among them unemployment, poverty, social inequality, human capital development including education and healthcare, food security, budget transparency, the extractive industry transparency including disclosure of the De Beers deal details as well as economic diversification.

He said the country was at the crossroads, and the UDC would have to prove that in government, they were able to perform better than their predecessors, the BDP.

He said the reality of Botswana was that over the past year, the economy had contracted; unemployment and poverty levels remained high, while the country’s health and education systems are in a poor state, and the UDC would have to indicate how they would address these.

He said UDC needed to fulfil its electoral promises of growing the economy by 10 per cent annually, the P1 800 old age pension scheme extended to those aged 60 and above, P4 000 living wage, creating 450 000 jobs over five years, tertiary education students’ stipend of P2 500, and reducing electricity and water tariffs by 30 per cent.

Mr Saleshando said the UDC made these 2024 electoral promises in full knowledge of the state of the Botswana economy since the former Minister of Finance, Ms Peggy Serame explained the circumstances of the country’s financial state in Parliament last August.

He urged the UDC to guard against running the risk of providing the public with false promises. ENDS