09 Sep 2019

The Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC) leader, Adv. Duma Boko says Botswana has the potential to be a high wage economy through improvement of  infrastructure.

When launching UDC’s Gaborone North prospective parliamentary candidate, Mr Haskins Nkaigwa and six prospective councilors on September 8, he said Botswana’s landlocked situation could be turned into opportunities.

“This country can be turned into a transportation nerve centre that connects cities through the first-world infrastructure,” he said.

He said there were many trickle-down effects under the transport industry that were unexplored.

In this regard, he said because there were many haulage trucks which passed through Botswana to other countries, there were opportunities to tap onto within the industry.

He said UDC manifesto outlined its intentions to grow an inclusive economy through modern infrastructure such as rail, road, telecommunications, and water, as well as internet connectivity in order to build a strong backbone for a high-performance economy.

He also said if UDC could be given a chance to rule, it would reform the business environment to accelerate domestic investment and increase inflows of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) through construction.

Adv. Boko also said there was also potential to use efficiency-seeking FDI through providing efficient Internet bandwidth that would be affordable to investors and Batswana at large.

In this regard, he said investors were interested in high-speed internet for them to do industries that would create jobs for Batswana.

He also said the country was endowed with resources that could attract those Batswana interested in manufacturing such as the salt which could create direct jobs to the unemployed youth.

“All we should do is to lower business operating costs so that Batswana companies could venture into these,” he said. Adv. Boko further said his party promised to lower teacher-student ratio to 1:25 in order to absorb more unemployed trained teachers.

He said the P1 500 old age pension allowance was also feasible owing to the envisaged revitalisation of the country economy, which his party promises.

For his part, Mr Nkaigwa said he intended to use the Constituency Development Fund to improve Gaborone North internal roads.

He said during his tenure as the incumbent MP, he advocated for connection of water and sewerage services at Gaborone North freehold plots.

Mr Nkaigwa said the fund would also be used for Phakalane satellite police station, Kgotla shelter for Block 8 and a recreational park at Block 10.

Mr Nkaigwa said he was disturbed by stench at Tsholofeo East, which he said there were plans to hire a company to get rid of it.

He lured voters to rally behind him and the six council hopefuls because he was the only suitable candidate who could advocate for developments on their behalf, noting that he successfully did so with the Phakalane-Glen Valley access road which had eased traffic on the A1 highway. ENDs