Politicians, technocrats a problem (10 September, 2007)

Mr Reatile said the agriculture sector could also form a centre piece of the economy of the town. He said the National Master Plan for Arable Agriculture and Dairy Development (NAMPAADD) should provide something similar to Glen Valley where farmers could be provided with proper infrastructure to enable farmers in the Jwaneng area to produce.

JWANENG - Lack of innovation in planning is responsible for the concentration of developments and pressure on the city of Gaborone while the rest of the country remains underdeveloped, says Ngwaketse West MP.

Speaking Friday in an interview, Mr Mephato Reatile accused Botswana politicians and technocrats for failing to bring developments to the countryside, especially in the western part of the country, arguing that they are more concerned about Gaborone.

If it is not Gaborone, he said, development planners would rather consider towns and villages along the railway line.

What we are seeing is that our planners are only following the route of a British imperialist, Cecil John Rhodes, who built the railway line that linked the then Cape Colony and Rhodesia, he said.
Mr Reatile is critical of development planners, especially the technocrats and politicians whom he accused of failing to exploit the opportunities presented to Botswana by the Kgalagadi Desert.
He criticised them for neglecting Jwaneng, which he said was well known throughout the world for producing top-grade diamonds that were central to Botswanas economic success.

Jwaneng is the worlds richest diamond mine by value and contributes about 60 per cent of the Debswanas earnings according to the company.

Since diamond mining was commissioned in the early 1980s Botswana graduated from being one of the worlds poorest counties to a middle income status.

This rapid development is largely attributed to the impact of the Jwaneng Mine on the economy of Botswana. Mr Reatile said there was no excuse for denying Jwaneng the right to host the envisaged Diamond Park, but says this is due to the fact that technocrats always have Gaborone in mind thus depriving other parts of the country the right to gain monumental development.
He said he believed that the current thinking in Botswana was geared towards maintaining the status quo and was devoid of innovation. Because Jwaneng is not connected to the national railway line, it will never be considered suitable for development as an industrial town.

In his view, Jwaneng is ideal for industries as well as warehousing as it is a midway between Johannesburg in South Africa and Windhoek in Namibia and is closer to the Atlantic coast.

Mr Reatile said he was worried that Botswana Development Corporation (BDC) and Botswana Exports Development and Investment Authority (BEDIA) were not doing enough to market Botswana but instead are only concentrating on Gaborone and centers along the railway line.

He said he was disappointed that BDC and BEDIA were not doing enough to provide infrastructure in towns like Jwaneng which could stimulate industrialisation in the hinterland.
The lawmaker said Jwaneng, like Selebi-Phikwe, needed a contingency plan which would make the town economically sustainable after diamond mining was exhausted in future.

He challenged the Ministry of Lands and Housing to accord Jwaneng due attention as a measure to create a climate conducive for investment by servicing both residential and industrial plots as well as speeding up their allocation.

Mr Reatile said the agriculture sector could also form a centre piece of the economy of the town. He said the National Master Plan for Arable Agriculture and Dairy Development (NAMPAADD) should provide something similar to Glen Valley where farmers could be provided with proper infrastructure to enable farmers in the Jwaneng area to produce.

The success of cattle, game ranching and arable farming, he said, could provide the foundation for the industrialisation of the town thus creating employment opportunities.

The legislator wants the government to decentralize many services from Gaborone and bring them closer to the people as another way of reducing pressure on Gaborone infrastructure and land. He is adamant that Jwaneng can be turned into a glittering desert city in the same way as Los Angeles in the United States of America.

The City of Los Angeles he contended, was established deep into the desert where there was no infrastructure but now it is one of the worlds famous cities because people who planned it had a vision of what they intended to achieve.

Mr Reatile said as Botswana was a vast country, it would not be fair to many citizens if developments are concentrated in the capital while citizens were distributed around the country with limited access to vital developments.

He added that the Kgalagadi part of Botswana has been sidelined for a long time despite the fact that it provides the bulk of the nations wealth through, diamonds, cattle and tourism.

The lawmaker believes the main reason why investors prefer Gaborone at the expense of rural and other urban centers emanates from the fact that government only has interest in the capital.

If the government has no interest in other places then no individual investor can.
Gaborone has suburbs called Phakalane, Mmokolodi and Notwane which are private and economically viable investments since they are closer to Gaborone. Nothing of this kind is possible anywhere else in the country because the government is not leading the way, he said.
Gaborone is everything to Botswana to an extent that the city seems to have eclipsed the country, he said. This should come to an end.

At present, Gaborone is not only regarded as Botswanas capital city but also an industrial city as well as the nations financial centre. BOPA