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On 13 November 2009, President Khama delivered the State of the Nation address. Through it, he outlined the nation’s progress, challenges and opportunities together with the government’s blueprint.It is very important to note that the address, like the annual Budget speech, is a topical statement. By reading and analysing it, one can get a sense of the government’s position of many fronts; particularly, the economic one. The President announced a raft of interventions but, for economy, we zero in on a select few:
unemployment;
poverty; and
citizen empowerment.
Citizen economic empowerment; importantly, the issue has been on the public agenda for some decades as instanced by then Finance Minister, the late Mr Peter Mmusi, chairing a presidential commission in 1982 which recommended that citizens be brought into the mainstream of the economy. In the subsequent, then president Festus Mogae, officially opened a national conference on Citizen Economic Empowerment on 5 July 1999. Remarkably, he stated that ‘the demand for citizen economic empowerment was legitimate and should be pursued vigorously without fear or apology (BOPA 05/07/99).’ Unfortunately, the issue fell off the public radar and re-surfaced when president Mogae presented the 2006 State of the Nation address. Notably, he stated that citizen economic empowerment policies were to be reviewed (BOPA 14/11/06). Lastly, the foregoing was followed by a motion by then Shoshong MP Duke Lefhoko, on citizen economic empowerment in early 2007. Like other motions, for example, the one on the declaration of assets and liabilities, this is yet to be acted upon and time is running out. In the consequent, some have been pregnant with the hope that the issue of citizen empowerment would assume pride of place in the State of the Nation address. In the 175-paragraph address, one would have expected a stand-alone paragraph addressing the subject. Unfortunately, same is subsumed under employment creation and, notably, paragraph 42 states that ‘in a further effort to promote citizen empowerment through local sourcing, CEDA and the Ministry of Trade and Industry have been instructed to prepare a list of companies that produce goods locally.’ It further states that ‘if the pricing is competitive central Government, local authorities and parastatals will be instructed to procure from such companies with immediate effect. This should empower citizens and local companies and help towards growing our manufacturing base (ibid). The preceding, in our view, are bold and decisive moves because procurement is one of the principal ways in which the government can economically empower its citizens (see South Africa’s BEE). We submit, however, that beyond emphasising citizen-biased procurement, we need to do first things first. Chiefly, growing and nurturing fledgling citizen-owned enterprises. Thus, if they are capacitated, they will be favourably circumstanced to compete by offering reliable, up-to-the-standard goods and services.Poverty; notably, this issue has many dimensions, the most important being the human rights one. Thus, it is appropriate to quote former UN Secretary General Kofi Anan, who said that ‘wherever we lift one soul from a life of poverty, we are defending human rights. And whenever we fail in this mission, we are failing human rights (OHCRC 2007).’ It is stated in the address that poverty is one of the nation’s challenges and that its incidence has gone down (paragraph 35). Perhaps, one would have liked to see a stand-alone paragraph that speaks to poverty alleviation measures. As it is, these are interspersed in various paragraphs; for example, 129, 130, 139 and 140. Perhaps, one may be interested in how these interventions will be sustained in the future; particularly, given the reduced economic circumstances, in the main, occasioned by the global financial crisis.Unemployment; just like poverty, the Address mentions that this is one of the nation’s major challenges and nobody, in good conscience, can argue otherwise. The President, through paragraph 40, presents an employment creation agenda by stating that ‘during my tenure of office employment creation will be driven by the following: six hubs; foreign direct investment focusing on mining, tourism, agriculture….’ By and large, this is an ambitious and thoroughgoing programme but one can hope that it will be deliverable. Again, some of the programmes are huge cost items and, hence, one may ask: How are we going to pay for them? Thus, it is notable that once the government implements a programme, it is issuing a cheque and one can only hope that these will not be rubber.
To conclude, it is not humanly possible, within the confines of this limited space, to react to the whole address. All the same, the selected three areas are very topical; particularly, citizen economic empowerment. For this reason, the need for a Citizen Economic Empowerment Law and Economic Citizen Empowerment Unit (like Zambia’s) should be on the public agenda sooner rather than later. By DR EMMANUEL BOTLHALE
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