BDP struggles to deliver on its promises
Prior to winning the 2019 general election, the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) promised Batswana a plethora of goodies, that the party is struggling to fulfil. Mmegi Staffer TSAONE BASIMANEBOTLHE reflects on some of the 2019 general election manifesto pr
THealth sector promises
he BDP promised to strengthen district health management teams by decentralising health care services and ensuring availability of resources; increase the number of beds in the existing hospitals and increase the number of district hospitals to decongest referral hospitals, development of more 24-hour health facilities and strengthen emergency medical services, commit to strengthening e-Health and rollout programmes such as patient management systems and telemedicine for specialised services to reach all corners of the country, establish rehabilitation centres for clients addicted to alcohol and other drugs, continue training health care workers, with a commitment to fund specialist training and funding of teaching hospitals, increase the number of youth-friendly health care facilities, roll out outdoor gyms to rural communities for health promotion and prevention of non-communicable diseases, continue with the Treat All HIV intervention to reach the 100% treatment goal for those affected; and establish a national health insurance fund.
Observation
In the health sector, COVID -19 seems to have exposed the country a lot since shortage of beds, resources, delay in purchasing vaccines for COVID-19 amongst others still remain a challenge.
The party has done little on health issues as the country continues to record high numbers of deaths as a result of COVID-19. It is not in doubt that lack of funds has also played a negative role in the health sector as the Ministry could not afford to buy some of the resources they want. The Ministry managed to employ some nurses on a temporary basis to help them fight COVID-19.
Job creation promises:
Put to work the best brains of Botswana to the best jobs in areas of priority; use Information and Communications Technology (ICT) to generate employment and self-employment across all sectors of the economy; attract Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) by revamping investment and stimulating domestic investment; open up the tourism space to many Batswana, review a number of legislations and remove red tape; expand Internet accessibility and telephony to rural areas (including to masimo and meraka) review land use legislation to make it possible for individuals to use their land (including farms) for tourism, warehouses and other processing businesses; build more schools, transform a number of junior secondary schools to teach Form 1 to Form 5 classes. We will also reduce class size to under 30 students per class. These adjustments will create space for the employment of many teachers, and create jobs in the construction industry; energise the solar industry across
Observation
The party has failed to deliver on this promise as unemployment skyrocketed as COVID-19 triggered the worst jobs crisis. Statistics Botswana revealed an increase in unemployment at a rate of 5.4 percent from 226,598 to 238,731 as 20,000 jobs were lost during the pandemic. Companies were also forced to shut down some of their operations while others implemented the no-work-no pay strategy. Instead of coming up with the solutions, the BDP also folded their arms and blamed the pandemic instead and claimed to have diverted the money to fighting the disease.
Education promises:
Accelerate and promote quality and access to early childhood education and care to reach at least 75%, promote and facilitate the establishment of schools relevant to the international community at tertiary level, merge and sharpen the focus of some tertiary institutions for efficiency as informed by the dictates of the economy, facilitate private sector participation through conditional leasing of institutional campuses based on relevance of proposals, review the top achiever’s programme for efficiency and effectiveness, develop and implement focused inputs to improve the quality of our education as part of its delivery of a lifelong learning ecosystem, develop and leverage human, capital, and technological resources for a national research and development agenda, overhaul and modernise the curriculum, so as to respond to the challenges of the Fourth Industrial Revolution, curriculum will respond to the national needs and the country’s developmental trajectory, the curriculum will support greater levels of research, development and innovation, revise strategies that target the achievement of quality teaching and learning outcomes by enhancing the skills and competencies of educators, including the school management, adequately resource schools with e-books, books, teachers, computers, and modern technology to facilitate learning in a modern classroom, drive up standards of learning across different schools by putting in place some of the finest school leaders to lead our schools, build more schools and transform them into integrated schools and reduce classes, work with teacher unions closely to remove any impediments and to ensure that their conditions of service facilitate and do not impede their delivery of quality education; make our schools more accessible to children with special needs such as people living with disabilities and to members of vulnerable communities, introduce the teaching of various indigenous languages in our classrooms and at university to ensure that learners’ cultures and languages are developed and promoted, continue to expand funding for learners at tertiary institutions by reviewing the current grant loan scheme and encourage private sector participation, establish strong research and development at tertiary institutions with strong Intellectual Property (IP) arrangements, translate research and development into products that will enhance our productivity standing. National Agricultural Processing (NAPRO) and its products with the brand name Harvest Haven point to an example of how research and development can lead to manufacturing, similar ventures must be grown either as start-ups or major players, develop a robust knowledge economy, approve and implement in phases the national resources development plan and fully implement the ETSSP to create a balance between academic pursuits and technical and vocational education.
Observation
The Ministry of Education has tried only to address the issue of the number of students per class and to employ some temporary teachers. Some of the promises are yet to be fulfilled. Government failed teachers who have been dying in large numbers whilst waiting for their turn to be vaccinated.
Housing promise
To provide funding for the development of affordable rental housing with rentals 20% or more below market levels, establish a ‘Save to Buy’ scheme to make saving for a deposit easier for those aspiring to own their own home, build up a stable and secure long-term rental market, ensure we build balanced communities with a mix of private, rental and social housing, provide better housing for students at tertiary institutions; and improve the performance of the construction industry and housing sector by creating a self-regulatory environment.
Observation
From the housing promises, nothing has been done rather there has been an increase in rentals.
Tourism promises:
To make Botswana a meetings place, conferencing, and a multi-sectoral tourism hub underpinned by unflinching quest for happiness, security, and comfort, introduce a tourism scheme to support the regeneration of towns and villages over the next five years, introduce new hospitality and catering traineeships and apprenticeships, revitalise dormant facilities in rural areas as tourism training centres, support the development of more community-led partnerships to create farm walk landscapes, increase the number of projects for heritage-led regeneration and preservation of farmland, forestry and waterways across rural Botswana, put a comprehensive sports tourism policy at the heart of national sports policy, deliver a new regional strategy to allocate substantial funding to key growth centres; linking growth centres to their rural hinterlands to create corridors of economic and social activity throughout the country, introduce elected councils for large and medium sized villages, invest in regional skills forums which bring together employers and education providers, rebrand and reposition Vocational Training Colleges (VTCs) to attract the youth and diversify the skills set and comprehensively review the tourism value chain with a view of maximising returns to the Botswana economy and Batswana.
Observation
Despite being one of the top contributors to the country’s GDP, COVID-19 has affected the sector badly and it’s not yet fully opened for international clients. University of Botswana political analyst, Mokaloba Mokaloba said it’s very difficult to assess the performance of government during such times. “However, against the pandemic itself, the BDP-led government started on a good note with timely measures to COVID-19,” he said. “Rather than working on improving the health sector and our facilities, the government went on to sleep. Against its own manifesto, creation of employment, Constitutional review and many other are still pipeline dreams. It’s a below-average rating even though the pandemic will at times be over-used as an excuse.” Political analyst, Lesole Machacha said the BDP has failed to deliver on its promises especially on job creation and nothing has been achieved so far.
“It is difficult to blame the government because we do not know what is happening. Food consumption even in shops has gone down and that is a sign that money is not circulating. Some of the ministers are not even competent. The worst thing is that our foreign reserves have also gone down. Our country’s growth rate has gone down from the way it has been,” he pointed out.