24 Oct 2024

The incident where some voters failed to vote in the advance polls was unfortunate and no mischief should be read from it, said President Dr Mokgweetsi Masisi during the Duma FM Presidential Townhall session in Tlokweng on October 23.

The audience had sought President Masisi’s view on the development, and he said the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC) had also admitted the mistake and promised to rectify the anomaly.

“I do not see why we should read any malice into the situation, and we trust their assurance that they will remedy that,” he said.

President Masisi also said his party was confident of surpassing the 31 seats required to form government.

“It is actually going to be a whitewash, but in any case if there is no outright majority winner the law is there to address the situation,” he said, responding to a question on the possibility of a hung Parliament.

He said contrary to rumours, the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) had no intention to rig the elections as it respected the rule of law.

He also said he did not support the direct election of a President, saying there was a risk he could be elected without his Members of Parliament, which would frustrate legislative and policy formulations.

President Masisi also said his party did not agree with the P4 000 minimum wage proposal by the opposition, saying it was not sustainable and was likely to cause inflation and a deficit. He noted that there were thousands of civil servants who earned less than that.

On mining, President Masisi said when De Beers prospected for diamonds, it was also given mining rights as Batswana were not educated.

“We were weak, underdeveloped, vulnerable and easy to take advantage of,” he said, adding that because of the integrity and calmness of leaders at the time, they sought assistance from international friends such as Canada who were enlightened on the issue.

He said they recommended forming Debswana, which would mine while De Beers would be advisors to help in skills transfer.

He said such was the arrangement until 2011 when the time to renew the sales agreement and master agreement came.

“Botswana was now enlightened and more Batswana educated. That is when the first opportunity came to demand some of the diamonds exclusively for government through the Okavango Diamond Company,” he said.

He said what irked De Beers was the removal of a non-compete clause that denied government the chance to value its diamonds and gave De Beers the monopoly of the value chain development.

He said the removal of the non-compete clause would allow Botswana to compete in the value chain development and bring more opportunities and funds. ENDS