“Citizen participation; although we say we want to promote citizen participation and compare with the statistics, in most cases these are low value investments.
We know that when we talk about high value investments, there are mostly at the hands of foreigners. In 2018, at Maun Kgotla, President Masisi visited people of Ngamiland to inform them that they will partake in concessions. I said in 2018, two years down the line nothing has changed.
You cannot keep giving the same answer every time you are asked what went wrong and put the blame on the former. It is the same Botswana Democratic Party which was ruling then, is still is. I do not think you can take more than two years failing to bring a policy on citizen participation in the Tourism Sector and concessions.
What we will not accept is that your silence means you are still plotting like you did at Banyana Farms; so that tomorrow if you issue invitations to invest in concessions, when we find you queuing, you would argue that you are also Batswana and have the right. There is already a trail of how you govern but it will be totally unacceptable if you do that. It will be totally unacceptable if this silence means that you are plotting. Mr Speaker, you know when Parliament commenced, the President visited a lot of areas telling people that during the July Parliament he is sanctioning the Citizen Economic Empowerment (CEE) Act, it is now September; there is nothing. I can tell you now, if you did not hear Honourable Molale mentioning the CEE Act, it means they have changed.
The same people the President as calling borampeetšhane (means people who have nothing) is now friends with them so this law is never going to be brought. There are rumours that the useless Economic Inclusion Law is going to be brought, they changed their minds about CEE. The reason there is silence about this law is on those grounds and I assure you that even at Tourism, we are going to be told that there is no CEE, but rather implementation of the Economic Inclusion Law, which has no weight. I know where this is headed.
Salaries and conditions of service in the Tourism Sector; conditions of service are still a problem because the Ministry of Employment, Labour Productivity and Skills Development is unable to access these other areas. It is a problem because they have not been working since the first lockdown in Botswana because tourists were not visiting Botswana; Europe was closed down, before Corona therefore they were still not working. So it is a problem when there is a delay to assist them, that to date we are still saying we are assessing if we can give some wage subsidy in May, it is a problem in our region.” – MP DUMELANG SALESHANDO IN PARLIAMENT