Sello Motseta
24 December 2020
It was a deeply humbling and gratifying experience to host the first ever virtual Buy Botswana Expo and Thought Leadership Conference despite the challenges occasioned by the upsurge in covid-19 and the economic difficulties it created as well as the hard realities it forced us as a country to face.
This is critical because one of the lessons of outbreak of the COVID-19 is that a small land locked import dependent country like Botswana quickly found itself, in the unenviable position of needing to produce medicinal face masks, alcohol based sanitizers, resuscitators and a host of other products and services which were ordinarily being manufactured outside. There was a suddenly a rush by Government to encourage the manufacturing of products locally to contain the debilitating effects of the epidemic.
It was also really a wake up call because we depend on neighbouring South Africa for basic foodstuffs that are produced in Botswana. It includes very basic commodities like vegetables, sorghum and fruits.
Batswana should promote campaign to galvanize support for locally produced products because of the knock back effect of COVID-19 on our diamond dependent economy. It has caused job losses despite various Government assurances that this will not take place and we therefore need to find ways of stimulating our economy again. The COVID challenge has therefore also created opportunities.
There are some key areas I believe a Buy Botswana Expo can help to galvanize this positive attitude –
Supporting initiatives such as preferential treatment of local companies in procurement processes of both Government and private businesses for major infrastructure projects
Supporting well co-ordinated and resourced Buy Local public awareness campaign
Sharing experiences of local manufacturers with market access challenges/successes
Identifying local companies considered best practice models to inspire future entrepreneurs
Engaging thought leaders in different areas on policy issues to identify gaps for redress
The idea is to bridge the gap between policy and reality. Too often we are told that there is preferential treatment for local companies in procurement processes but the reality paints a different picture. We need to identify the monkey in the room and share stories of those who triumphed against adversity.
The Buy Botswana Expo idea intends to showcase Botswana’s economic fulcrum –the rich narrative of various local enterprises from different economic sectors and what they have to offer our economy.
Policy-makers, industry leaders and leading academics will in time debate vigorously what they believe will be the best blueprint to urge Botswana’s manufacturing sector to go forward.
It will also be very important to share stories of locally based companies supporting local manufacturers with various innovative schemes. PPC Botswana’s plant for example, produces 300,000 tons of cement per annum for the local market and consciously sources its raw materials locally.
The Botswana Government provides for about 80% of support for SMME’s and there is a feeling that much more can be done to exploit this by sharing experiences of stakeholders about challenges and opportunities so that we can give full effect to progressive government policies in this respect.
Some local manufacturers and service providers as well as agricultural producers have adequate capacities to produce quantities and the requisite quality to meet the needs of the local market but the uptake of their products and services remain low because of a lack of goodwill.
It is therefore necessary to engage in discussions about the issues of identifying the bottlenecks that affect the success of local manufacturers. There are basic foodstuffs like vegetables where many retail outlets like Pick n Pay, Payless and Spar have shelves with proudly South Africa but there is no parallel platform for local producers. There is literally no shelf space for Buy Botswana products.
We however see Batswana selling vegetables etc from the back of their tucks in busy parking lots and not in retail outlets in the country of their birth and we need to better understand why. That is why going forward we hope to build a platform to sustain a campaign for Buy Botswana.
In the near future we will launch a website providing a platform for Buy Botswana campaign. We also endeavour to periodically convene virtual discussions on tender awards where we believe opportunities exist for greater local participation. It is a unique attempt to offset idea no local solutions exist.
Stakeholders will be able to pitch ideas on why they believe certain things happen in a certain way. This is important because we train engineers every year at the top tertiary institutions in the world and yet for simple infrastructure projects like roads we sometimes find the Government engaging Chinese contractors at great cost. We need to interrogate these issues with level heads and open minds.
There a number of progressive policies adopted by government like Presidential Directive CAB 11 (A) 2010 stipulating Central Government, local Authorities and Parastatal Organizations should purchase all their requirements(goods and services) from locally based producers/manufacturers and service providers – but there is little evidence of these bold policies in practice.
This has created a gap in perceptions and reality best captured by Statistics Botswana who in January 2020, indicated Botswana’s total imports were valued at P4, 845.3 million resulting in a decrease of 22.7% compared to the revised December 2019 value of P6, 270.4 million.
Commodities that were imported mostly in January 2020 were Fuel, contributing 21.3% to total imports; Food, Beverages and Tobacco with a contribution of 16.5%; Machinery and Electrical Equipment accounting for 15.4% while Diamonds represented 13.8% of the monthly total.
The SACU region supplied 77.0% of total imports during period under review, with neighbouring South Africa whose economy remains in the hands of a white minority accounting for 75.5% of total imports during the month. Imports from Asia and the European Union (EU) regions accounted for 12.7% and 3.8% respectively. Canada contributed 4.0% of imports into Botswana.
Calls to “buy local” and ‘support local’ have therefore emerged in recent years with a growing realization of the crucial role small businesses play in creating jobs, strengthening better community cohesion and enhancing local character — thanks largely to a rapidly growing literacy rate, rising unemployment as well as youth disenchantment with a number of community coalitions also taking up the campaign.
We want Government to assume a role like that of the American Independent Business Alliance (AMIBA), which helps communities across North America implement and sustain effective “buy local” campaigns in communities of all sizes, ideologies and economic circumstances.
The ultimate goal for our Buy Botswana Expo and Thought Leadership Conference over time is to create a cultural shift with most Batswana especially Government procurement officers identifying themselves as supporters of local manufacturers and ensuring that doing business locally is a point of pride.
Creating this culture of support for local manufacturers and service providers cannot be done with a marketing blitz or sustained criticism of the Government but can be achieved through a sustained, multifaceted public awareness campaign embedding several key concepts into our consciousness.
Key amongst these approaches is to create a better understanding of the idea that doing business locally offers many benefits like providing benefits to the consumer and to society for example, by reducing the truck loads needed to ferry import commodities into country thereby reducing degradation on key infrastructure like road networks and ensuring carbon emissions into atmosphere are limited.
We need to stop talking about citizen empowerment and just do it – like the Nike motto challenges us.
The most apt conclusion is that perhaps offered by Simon Sinek when he opined, “What good is an idea if it remains an idea? Try. Experiment. Iterate. Fail. Try again. Change the world.”
Sello Motseta is the proprietor of the Buy Botswana Expo and Thought Leadership Conference, who with support of logistics partners PR Practice hosted the First Ever PPC Buy Botswana Virtual Conference
