31 Aug 2026

Botswana’s next chapter on national transformation requires citizens, entrepreneurs and communities who recognise their own assets and have the ambition to put them to productive use.

Vice President Ndaba Gaolathe, made the observation on Saturday at the celebration of the Batlokwa cultural festival dubbed Mafifatshwana in Tlokweng.

Gaolathe said government had learned through difficult experience that national transformation could not be delivered from government offices alone.

“Batlokwa, consider what you are sitting on. Your songs, architecture, cuisine, stories, language, festivals and this very ground beneath your feet all carry cultural value. With imagination and organisation, they can carry economic value too,” he said.

He said with inherited practices were ideas about stewardship, saving, production, cooperation and responsibility that remained relevant to the economy that was being built.

Gaolathe said he was encouraged by the vision for a Tlokweng Smart village and the Kgosi Gaborone Legacy Monument and Cultural tourism precinct and therefore, an opportunity existed to build something that taught, employed and inspired.

He said government’s role was to help create the conditions in which worthy ideas could move through planning support, technical expertise, stronger institutional coordination and engagement with the National Planning Commission and other relevant partners.

“Batlokwa bring your plans. Strengthen your institutions, develop propositions capable of attracting investment and partnership. Let the conversation increasingly become this is what we intend to build. How do we move it?” he added.

He called on Batlokwa youth to be proactive in giving their culture a hand and make it work. 

Gaolathe said they should venture into becoming heritage tourism operators and document Batlokwa history on film. “Let another build the digital platform that carries Setlokwa across borders and let another build a business from the food, fashion, architecture, music or knowledge inherited here. Be like the ant bear, read the ground beneath your feet. Dig beyond what is immediately visible, find new water in old ground,” he said.

He told young people that their grandparents preserved inheritance and they must discover what else it could become.

Kgosi Puso of Batlokwa said the Mafifatshwana cultural festival started in 2012 at the unveiling of Kgosi Gaborone statue at the main Kgotla and had since branded into a kind reminder of the forefathers who set tone of the Batlokwa history. 

“This one is a rich cultural history that must be protected, nurtured, improved and passed to next generations. It is not just entertainment but part of our responsibility to preserve the soul of our people,” said Kgosi Puso.

He said last year, Batlokwa celebrated 145 years as a tribe in existence, which was also a reminder that Batlokwa had a set of values and identity as a tribe, a responsibility he said was handed from past generations to the present with gratitude.

Kgosi Puso said they viewed culture as an economic asset and said developments must not come at the expense of its disappearance.

“We dream to become a smart model village, digitally connected, great economic opportunities, embracing innovation and developing human capital. Tradition and innovation can walk together. We want to establish structures to catalyse welfare of our people,” he said.

Kgosi Puso said they had set up Batlokwa Royal Council, Royal Batlokwa Development Trust, Royal Batlokwa Incorporated and they were working towards establishing a secretariat to coordinate all the efforts. 

The cultural festival was celebrated under the theme: Building economic resilience and self-sustenance through culture preservation.  ENDS