19 Jul 2023

Botswana National Front (BNF) leader, Advocate Duma Boko says the unemployment situation is a ticking time-bomb which the Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC) government will accord the urgency it deserves.

Advocate Boko, who is also president of UDC, said job creation would be a matter of the highest priority. He said the young must be rescued from the margins of the economy and brought into the mainstream as entrepreneurs, creatives as well as other ventures.

Advocate Boko was officially opening the BNF annual conference at Shoshong Senior Secondary School over the long weekend.

He said the UDC had made a commitment to create 100 000 jobs in the first 12 months of its government.

Adv. Boko said the UDC believed that paid wage labour was not the only form of employment and maintained that creating opportunities for economic activity enabled entrepreneurship and scaled up opportunities for self-employment and job creation.

‘’The UDC government will urgently intervene to address the crushing household debt in the country,” he said, adding that they would enact a credit regulation legislation embodying debt rehabilitation and an array of instruments to acquire all the loan books at a reduced amount from the lenders.

Adv. Boko said the current regime had failed the country and the people and was alive to the rising resentment against it.

He urged people to see through all smokescreens and resoundingly reject the regime at the polls next year.

He said the UDC presented a unique and robust intervention on health, adding that they would introduce a national health insurance scheme under which every citizen would have medical aid fully covered by the state in a manner that was equitable and effective.

He said they sought to provide citizens of Botswana with world class health care.

He accused President Mokgweetsi Masisi of offering no transformative agenda for Botswana, saying under him the country had witnessed the rise of mediocrity and incompetence.

He said the whole country was under a cost-of-living crisis.

Adv. Boko also said the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) was not independent.

He said the IEC was mandated to deliver free, fair and credible elections in a transparent manner and that it fell short of the mandate.

He said to defend the vote a movement had emerged called Madibelatlhopho who have committed to undergo intensive training on the electoral process and to monitor elections.

Concerning the position of BNF in UDC, he said the BNF was an integral part of the UDC and that it occupied the position of president.

He said the position placed upon it the burden of assisting in every way possible and steering the UDC wisely and diligently as well as working closely and harmoniously with other partners.

Opposition party’s representative who attended promised to work jointly with the BNF under the UDC structures.

A representative from Alliance for Progressives, Dr Phenyo Butale said members of his party had taken the decision to work with other parties that formed UDC to defeat the ruling BDP. He said they wanted to rescue Batswana from poverty and unemployment.

Dr Butale said the coming 2024 general elections would see the new Botswana. He said cooperation and working together as opposition parties would defeat the ruling BDP. He supported the counting of ballot papers at polling stations.

Botswana Patriotic Front (BPF) representative and vice president, Mr Mephato Reatile said the time had arrived for change.

Mr Reatile also said corruption was affecting the country’s economy. On health, he said Botswana was in trouble and that there were no doctors and medicines.

He said the BPF would work with other opposition parties under the UDC to defeat the BDP.

Solidarity messages were also read from various trade unions in Botswana. Ends