22 Jun 2025

For Botswana to emerge from the economic quagmire of slow growth, high unemployment and poverty levels, the country needs bold ideas from leaders of various state sectors to transform the nation’s fortunes.

These were the sentiments expressed by President Advocate Duma Boko while addressing the Economic Committee of Cabinet in Gaborone on Friday.

The gathering, attended by cabinet ministers, accounting officers of the different government ministries, chief executive officers of state owned enterprises, and the governor of the Bank of Botswana among other senior state officials, heard the President’s clarion call for innovative economic solutions.

“We should examine the country’s challenges, and where it ought to be, and discuss how we get  there. That is a function of strategy, we need to create plans to get us where we ought to be, and offer timelines,” said President Boko.

He called for robust engagement and debate, for the Economic Committee to be open, frank and honest about anything that ought to be changed, and offer practical solutions to the nation’s conditions.

“We need to adjust our sails, map out strategies that will take us forward. The ways in which we have done things as a country quite clearly have not worked, either at all or as we thought they would. We are all responsible, and we are called upon to engineer a different outcome, that is why we occupy the positions we hold,” said President Boko.

He added that institutions and systems should also be examined to gauge if they functioned to improve the nation’s economy and if not, they should be transformed in order to assist in developing the lives of Batswana.

“We need to operate within strictures of time. This forces us to take a position on how we relate with the habitual settings of our actions, the institutions that we have now, the personalities that lead these institutions, ourselves included. We are creatures of habit, but we can change, re-examine the institutions in relation to our present predicaments,” President Boko advised.

He stressed that interventions to improve the economy should be anchored on the ideals of improving the livelihood of ordinary Batswana, and transform the fortunes of the poorest and most vulnerable members of society.

“I take the view that poverty is a violation of human rights, and that is the animating impulse for why I try and do what I do. We have consigned many of our people to subhuman existence. In the manner that we have conducted our affairs, we have failed them, and we must now begin to atone, and do the very best to correct. At the heart of all we do are those people,” President Boko said.

Vice President, also Minister of Finance, Mr Ndaba Gaolathe made a presentation on the state of public finances, leading to a general discussion from all participants, before proposed remedial actions were discussed extensively leading to pointers on a way forward ending the day’s engagement. ENDS