Dear Editor,
There is currently considerable debate in Botswana about the relationship between President Duma Boko and businessman Mr Zunaid Moti, particularly regarding the construction of schools and clinics through the African Hero initiative.
While legitimate questions may be raised about any arrangement involving public institutions and private interests, I find it troubling that the debate appears to be moving quickly towards condemning an initiative that is bringing much-needed infrastructure to Botswana, without first asking a more fundamental question:
What exactly is wrong with private capital helping Botswana to build schools and clinics when government itself says that it is not paying for their construction?
The Block 7 school and clinic provide a useful example. The President has publicly stated that government spent nothing on the construction of the school. Government provided the land and will subsequently be responsible for operating the facilities, including providing teachers, health workers and medicines. The school is expected to accommodate about 380 learners, while the clinic is designed to serve hundreds of patients.
Surely, before dismissing such an arrangement, we should ask a simple question: Would Botswana rather have the school and clinic, or would we prefer another vacant plot because government could not afford to build them?
Botswana does not have a surplus of schools and clinics. On the contrary, communities across the country continue to require additional classrooms, health facilities and better access to basic services. At the same time, many of our existing public schools are suffering from serious deterioration.
Government has itself recognised this challenge and established the Education Infrastructure and Management Company to mobilise resources and address the maintenance and refurbishment of government schools.
In other words, Botswana faces two infrastructure challenges simultaneously: we need to build new schools and clinics while also rehabilitating existing ones.
If private investors are prepared to bring capital, technology and new construction models to help address the first challenge, while government tackles the second through initiatives such as the Education Infrastructure and Management Company, why should that automatically be viewed negatively?
Indeed, perhaps this initiative should prompt us to think more creatively about how Botswana finances development.
Much of the current controversy appears to arise from Mr Moti’s relationship with President Boko. That is understandable. Citizens are entitled to be interested in relationships between political leaders and influential businesspeople.
However, we should be careful not to allow the existence of such a relationship to become, by itself, evidence that an initiative is inappropriate.
Botswana has for many years relied on private companies to provide goods, services and infrastructure to government. Successive administrations have entered into procurement arrangements with private businesses involving vehicles, equipment, technology, construction, defence and numerous other services.
Some of those arrangements have generated questions about costs, procurement methods and relationships between business and political interests. Yet we have not, as a country, concluded that private businesses should therefore be excluded from participating in national development.
Let me jog some people’s memory, in the past government vehicle fleets were bought from a ‘monopoly’ at questionable prices and these vehicles were serviced at the same monopolies at exorbitant prices. Let’s not forget the BDF, where vehicles, armoury, planes and even food was brought from certain ‘monopolies’ at ‘questionable’ prices. Government lost billions in what many deemed inflated prices. With regards to the current raging debate, here is someone working with government in a private sector partnership that benefits the nation and naysayers are screaming.
The principle should be no different today.
If private capital can be mobilised to provide infrastructure that Botswana needs, the important consideration should be the nature and benefit of the arrangement, rather than simply the identity of the investor or his relationship with political leaders.
There is, after all, an important distinction between private investment in public infrastructure and government procurement funded by taxpayers. When government purchases goods or services using public funds, the principal concern is how effectively those resources are being used.
When a private investor provides capital to construct public infrastructure, the questions are somewhat different: What does Botswana receive? What obligations does government assume? Who owns the asset?
These are sensible considerations. But they should lead us towards better models of partnership, rather than towards an instinctive rejection of private-sector participation because of made-up assumption of possible corruption.
Botswana desperately needs to broaden the way in which it thinks about development financing. For decades, we have largely looked to government to finance, build and maintain public infrastructure. That model is becoming increasingly difficult to sustain as government faces competing demands and constrained resources.
Why should government necessarily have to finance everything itself? There is considerable scope for government to leverage private capital, philanthropy, technology, institutional partnerships and other sources of financing to accelerate national development.
This is particularly important in sectors such as education and healthcare, where the social returns from infrastructure are enormous. A school is not simply a building, it is an investment in human capital; A clinic is not simply a structure, it is an investment in the health and productivity of a community.
If a private investor is prepared to put capital into such infrastructure, it is worth asking whether Botswana can develop more mechanisms through which similar contributions can be encouraged.
The objective should not be to replace government. Government will remain responsible for ensuring that citizens have access to quality education, healthcare and other essential services.
Rather, the objective should be to multiply government’s capacity by bringing other resources into the development equation.
The debate around the African Hero initiative should therefore not become simply a referendum on Mr Moti or his relationship with President Boko. Nor should it become another episode in Botswana’s increasingly polarised political discourse. The more useful question is whether the initiative delivers something of genuine and lasting value to Batswana.
If private capital is being used to construct schools and clinics that communities desperately need, without imposing unreasonable financial obligations on the country, then surely there is something worth celebrating. That does not mean that every private initiative should automatically be welcomed. Nor does it mean that legitimate questions should not be asked. It simply means that we should distinguish between healthy public interest and reflexive suspicion.
We should also be intellectually honest about the broader principle. If private-sector participation is acceptable when government purchases vehicles, equipment, technology or other services, it is difficult to argue that private capital becomes inherently problematic merely because it is being used to construct a school or clinic.
Indeed, perhaps we should be asking ourselves why Botswana has not done more to encourage innovative forms of private participation in public infrastructure.
Our infrastructure needs are enormous. Government resources are finite. Private capital exists. The challenge is to find ways of bringing these resources together in a manner that benefits the country. That is the opportunity presented by initiatives such as the construction of schools and clinics through African Hero.
Botswana needs schools, clinics, jobs, investment, new infrastructure etc, while simultaneously repairing much of the infrastructure it already has. We cannot complain about these shortages while dismissing every attempt to bring non-governmental resources into addressing them.
Perhaps, therefore, the question we should be asking is not:
“Why is Moti building schools and clinics?”
Perhaps the more important question is:
“Why has it taken us so long to find innovative ways of getting more schools and clinics built for Batswana?”
That is the conversation Botswana should be having. Rather than seeing private investment in public infrastructure primarily through the lens of political personalities, we should see it as an opportunity to rethink how a resource-constrained country can mobilise all available sources of capital, expertise and innovation to accelerate development.
Botswana needs more development, not fewer avenues through which development can happen.
