How investing in enablers without production is bad economic policy
By Dr Douglas Rasbash – Special Correspondent
For decades, Botswana has comforted itself with the belief that investing in enablers is the same thing as investing in growth. Roads, buildings, offices, conference centres, IT platforms, utilities — the list is long and familiar. Every National Development Plan has been paved with enablers. Every budget speech celebrates them. Every ribbon-cutting ceremony promises transformation. Yet the numbers refuse to cooperate. Enablers do not diversify the economy. Enablers do not create export revenues. Enablers do not build global value chains. Enablers do not protect Botswana from a 40% GDP diamond shock. Enablers enable — they do not produce.
THE ENABLER ILLUSION
In the harsh logic of economic structure, enablers are cost centres unless paired with productive sectors. Roads without industries simply move people to unemployment more efficiently. Office parks without tradable services are monuments to wishful thinking. Digital platforms without digital exports are expensive toys.
The Gazette has repeatedly observed a troubling pattern: as Botswana’s gross fixed capital formation has increased, unemployment has risen and GDP growth has fallen — precisely the opposite of what development theory predicts. This should, by now, have triggered a fundamental rethink in economic policy.
CONCRETE WITHOUT COMPETITIVENESS
This is the hidden arithmetic behind Botswana’s stagnation. The country has invested heavily in concrete, but lightly in competitiveness. It has built capacity to deliver services, but not capacity to sell anything to the world. The state has been strengthened, while the private economy — the only sustainable carrier of long-term growth — has been left structurally weak.
The result is a paradox that grows more dangerous with time: the more Botswana invests in enablers without investing in production, the more dependent it becomes on diamonds.
THE MECHANICS OF “SOFT KILLING”
This is how the soft killing happens — quietly, incrementally, invisibly. Every pula spent on an enabler without a linked productive sector defers diversification. Every year prioritising enablers over exports deepens structural imbalance. Every plan that promises transformation through enablers alone mathematically guarantees stagnation.
This is not ideology. It is economic composition. Enablers accelerate growth only when industries exist to use them. In Botswana, that condition is largely absent. Without industries, enablers become liabilities: they generate operating costs rather than revenues.
THE INVESTMENT MISMATCH
Our analysis shows that Botswana needs to invest 6–10% of GDP per year into productive sectors — those that generate export earnings, foreign exchange, jobs, technology transfer and multiplier effects independent of diamonds. Yet NDP12 and the Botswana Economic Transformation Programme direct only 1–2% of GDP toward such drivers.
The rest is absorbed by enablers, administration, welfare and maintenance of the state. Energy systems without industries to power. Roads and railways with little to trade. Water infrastructure without modern agricultural production systems. The economy remains structurally flat. Productivity stagnates. Unemployment becomes entrenched. Non-diamond per capita income remains anaemic.
A PLANNING PHILOSOPHY FAILURE
This contradiction sits at the heart of government strategy. A country that already invests too little in production continues to prioritise unproductive enablers — while contemplating deeper exposure to diamonds through corporate acquisitions that increase, rather than reduce, national risk.
Botswana is not collapsing loudly. It is being weakened quietly. Line ministries are rewarded for kilometres built, megawatts installed and cubic metres delivered — irrespective of economic output. The planning system measures activity, not value creation.
THE SIMPLE RULE
The simplest rule in economics has been forgotten: if you want a different economy, you must invest in different things. Enablers do not diversify. Only productive sectors do.
Until Botswana’s investment profile reflects this truth, the arithmetic of destiny will not change.