Well said Bra Simbi!

Once in a while, someone comes out to tell unadilterated truth to power! And if I may hazard an opinion, Simbi Phiri, the Chairman of Khato Civils, came to the party last Friday during the commissioning of the 100KM Masama water pipeline.

In not so many words, Phiri told dignitaries, among them President Dr. Mokgweetsi Masisi, that all that Africans need is an opportunity – nothing more! What a poignant message- unambiguous; clear, explicit, and unequivocal!

Indeed this is exactly what all Africans need. An opportunity to work, to shine, to invent, to create, to innovate, to study, to grow, and in a word, an opportunity to live! You don’t need to be Asian, American, European, or Scandinavian to be an engineer or any other professional for that matter.

All you need is the opportunity of proper education and thereafter an opportunity of an environment that is conducive for work. Simbi Phiri’s Khato Civils has pulled off this ambitious work of engineering within the time-space and at the allocated budget.

Some among us may be hissing and murmuring it’s a raw deal or cursing that they didn’t get the P1 billion tender, but the fact is that we can’t all win.

I am aware that from the onset the tender was not without controversy. Shades were thrown around, some even accusing the contractor of bankrolling the ruling party’s 2019 general election campaign. Yet, that’s not the subject of this brief.

Don’t get me wrong, all works that involve public money must be products of aboveboard tender processes, and I think the Public Procurement and Asset Disposal Board ought to make their procedures foolproof in order to frustrate any semblance of corruption.

But, for now, I wanted to pay tribute to this man’s emotional speech. To me, he sounded genuine. Here is an African of Malawi and Tswana ancestry stating an irrefutable fact about the condition of an African. Even his deeds, if measured by the delivery of the project, validate his words.

The African businessman, the African engineer, the African innovator, the

African scientist, the African medicine man, herbalist, the African inventor, the African writer, and all the professionals and craftsmen, need an opportunity. But we all know that Africa treats her own people as second-class citizens.

Look at Botswana. Here is a country richly endowed with mineral wealth, yet we don’t have a single school to train diamond cutters, lapidarist, setters, or gemologists – in fact, we rely on the goodwill of diamond cutting and polishing companies that come here, to train our people!

With this kind of mentality, what opportunity can Batswana get in the gemstone industry? Certainly, these foreign Companies will treat Batswana as beggars and pay them slave wages. After all, what do they know about making these stones into jewellery except for what they teach them?

The Indian embassy here has long proposed to help our Government to set up a diamond training school here so that our people need not go to South Africa, India, Antwerp, Canada, and the rest of the world to learn these skills, but for some queer reason, this Government has resisted the overture.

You wonder what the motive is, why can’t the relevant Ministry find a piece of land for this gesture, after all, India has volunteered to provide the technical and technological skills required to train our people! I smell a rat in this foot-dragging, something is amiss.

Politicians and their lying lips, they will tell us this is the African Decade

and then go o to hoard all the public resources, or worst of all, invest them outside the continent for themselves and their families whilst their people back home starve and beg.

Phiri commended Masisi for giving his company an opportunity to showcase its ability and wished that all other African leaders could emulate his example. Yes, if we could all commit to giving our people an opportunity, Africa would certainly rise to claim its place in the world.

And one surest way to start is the African Continental Free Trade Area Agreement. This is the inducement that Africa has long waited for. It is finally here, it must de domesticated so that we can see its tangibles. Khato’s Masama project could signal the beginning of the implementation of this pan African pact.

I must also say that Motshwarelela Kgosi ya BaKgatla ba Kgafela, Kgosi Bana Sekai Linchwe also came to the party. He made two telling points. One is that government must tell BaKgatla what she will do for them when the groundwater resources on which the Masama project relies, are depleted.

Surely underground water is finite, at one point it will deplete, especially given the rate at which it is pumped at Masama. But when that happens, what alternative exists for the people in that area, whose boreholes have been the only source of water for their livestock?

I remember during Ian Khama’s presidency, a delegation from Bore / Mmamagwaila syndicate visited the Office of the President to make this complaint,

essentially, that the Masama water project was causing their borehole to dry up. They are not the only ones.

Many others in the vicinity of Leshibitse, Mosomane, Pitse Tshweu, Three, Tautshokana all the way to Kgomodiatshaba will be affected. The burning question is what alternative does the government have for these people and their livestock once underground water dries up?

Kgosi Sekai also touched on yet another important aspect of public works tender – the duty of a winning company to the communities in which it operates. Khato Civils has done its bit of corporate social responsibility from Leshibitse to Mosomane, Rasesa, and Bokaa.

However, it seems Kgosi reckons this was not sufficient and has requested Phiri to extend a helping hand to the building of Leobo la Kgotla (Kgotla Shelter) in Monhudi, which Sekai promises will be second to none in the country.

I have no doubt that Phiri will make a generous offer, especially since the request was made at an auspicious public gathering in the presence of the President and beamed on national television for all and sundry to see.

In the same vein, the President and his entourage will also find it hard to resist the compulsion to contribute given that they were guilty by association when the announcement was made!

However, my point of departure is that we cannot have our Kings and Chiefs hopping from one place to another, cap in hand begging for alms and donations.

Corporate Social Responsibility must be defined in law and in contracts so that multinational corporations and all other companies that win public tenders are compelled to give back to communities.

I mean look at all the towns, villages, and settlements in the vicinity of mining operations – they are derelict, rundown, and ramshackle!

We need to revisit that gentleman’s agreement that the late Sir Seretse Khama and the Chiefs signed, which essentially ceded control over all the mineral wealth found in communities to the state with no provision for royalties or compensation of sorts to the residents. It has served its purpose and now needs a serious review!

We can’t rely on the goodwill of profit-driven companies to decide what benefit must accrue to the owners of the natural resources. This is outright pillage and must stop at once.

Just imagine this absurdity, here is a Chief that presides over vast water resources that are now being harvested to water Greater Gaborone residents, yet he has no money to build a mere Leobo!

You could ask whatever happened to that principle of self-reliance that bequeathed us Masama Farm for instance? Why are communities begging for donations to build public projects while their resources are diverted to benefit the larger populace?