0tR Y .,a .o

0tR Y .,a .o A DIALOGUE BETWEEN POLITICAL THEORY AND PRACTICE papers from a seminar BOTSWANA DEMOCRATIC PARTY GABORONE 1983 cJ10 F50

CONTENTS Page No. INTRODUCTION by the Secretary General, the Hon D.K. Kwelagobe, M.P...... I OPENING SPEECH by His Excellency the President, Dr Q.K.J. Masire, PHD., P.O.H., J.P., M.P ...... 3 THE BOTSWANA CONSTITUTION by I.S. Kirby [Attorney], Gaborone ...... 6 RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN POLITICIANS AND PUBLIC OFFICERS Professor K. C. Sharma, University of Botswana ...... 27 POLITICAL PARTIES IN BOTSWANA AND THEIR ROLE IN DEMOCRACY by Mr R. Nengwekhulu [Lecturer], University of Botswana ...... 41 A BRIEF COMPARISON OF POLITICAL IDEOLOGIES AND SYSTEMS (Liberalism, Conservatism, Socialism, Social Democracy, Communism, etc.) by Dr E. Adam, Director, Friedrich Ebert Foundation, Gaborone ...... 59 A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE BOTSWANA ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY by Professor Dr Anne Seidman, University.of Zimbabwe, Harare ...... 89 BOTSWANA ECONOMIC ANALYSIS WITH PARTICULAR REFERENCE TO RURAL AREAS by Mr M. Hubbard [Lecturer], University.of Botswana ...... I7

INTRODUCTION The articles: and dis cussions presented in: 1this publication are based on lectures held during a BDP Seminar which took placeat Sebele on the 11th And T2th Decembe r, 1982 and was attended by Cabinet Ministers, Members of Parliament, Councillors and Members of the National Executive of the BDP Youth. My first vote of thanks is directed towards His Excellency the President, Dr Masire, who not only encouraged the seminar discussion through his Opening Speech, but took part himself and gave permission to publish his speech within this booklet. I also would like to express my gratitude to all the lecturers who were prepared to be with us at the weekend to present their views and be exposed to and participate in our discussions. Finally, I would like to thank all the participants, who contributed to a frank, open and sometimes critical discussion through their questions and comments, and last but not least, the Chairman of the BDP, Mr Peter Mmusi who chaired the meeting and guided our discussions. The BDP has carried Government responsibilities for 17 years now and there can be no doubt that this party has made great achievements in the political, social and economic development of this country and maintained a situation of freedom and political stability. Our policies have been firmly based on our party's principles: Kagisano (social harmony), Democracy (Puso ka Batho), Development (Ditihabololo), Self-Reliance (Boipelego) and Unity (Popagano ya Seshaba). However, we must realise that times are changing and the rapid development of our country is creating new social relationships and different economic structures and institutions. It should be obvious to all that the party, through its different organs, has involved Itself in a permanent process of applying its principles to changing situations and adapting its policies to new challenges. As the late President Sir Seretse Khama pointed out on so many occasions: Kagisano "must not bee seen as a static concept ... therefore to preserve Kagisano will require constant thought and constant effort". It has been with these considerations in mind that the BDP decided to organize a seminar in order to expose our political practice to the more theoretical views of academics from diff6rent sciences, to discuss possible alternatives to our present policies and to establish possible shortcomings and failures which may hamper our future development. The BDP, as a Democratic party and committed to Democratic principles as the corner stones of our society and its institutions, has always been prepared to learn from experience, to be exposed to critical positions and to define its policies through a process of communication and discussion. Yet we have never attempted to adopt foreign ideologies or to copy from other systems and models. We are committed to the establishment of our own and unique path of development and Democracy for Botswana, although we are prepared to learn from others' experience.

It is therefore self evident that the views expressed during the seminar, especially in the lectures published here, are those of individuals and not necessarily expressions:of the Party's and Government's policy. The decision to publish the lectures and comments has been made to further the political discussion within our party, to improve political consciousness' and to enable broader participation and more substantial contributions to the Party's poltIcy formulation which will find its authentic expression in our 1984 Election Manifsto. The Secretary General D. K. Kwelagobet

OPENING ADDRESS BY HIS EXCELLENCY., THE PRESIDENT DR Q.K.J. MASIRE Mr Chairman, Honourable Ministers, Honourable Members of Parliament, Councillors, Members of the Youth National Executives, Regional Organisers. Allow me to start by welcoming you all to this - our Botswana Democratic Party Political Seminar organised by our party secretariat. I wish to congratulate them for making it possible for us to meet for the purpose of exchanging views on the subject they have chosen to be discussed at this seminar, I observe that these topics are not only topical, they are also instructive. Let me also thank the team of experts who have kindly agreed to lead the discussions on those topics of their respective speciality. I am sure, we are all prepared for an exciting but, nevertheless, fruitful period of discussions. I need not remind participants, here present, that this seminar is being held in a country that practises a multi-party democracy despite the fact that we are in a politically volatile region. I would like to re-state our assurance that it is certainly the intention of this government to maintain a multi-party democracy in this country. We do not retain it as a feature of the Westminster system; we maintain itas part of our social fabric. Democracy is nothing new in this country; we have always practised it at our kgotlas You will know that this democratic concept is implied in the Setswana saying "Mmualebe o bua la gagwe". That means, everyone has a right to speak his mind: it doesn't matter how disagreeably you regard his point of view. And, at our kgotla meetings, men and women, irrespective of their social standing, contributed to the debates on matters of public interest. We have therefore blended our democratic tradition with the modern political system. It is important, however, that the parties we form should fulfil a purpose that is in the national interest. A new political party should not be formed to promote the interests of an individual or a group of people. It should be formed to fill in a gap or a role that the existing parties are unable to fulfil. If a new party fails to satisfy this roleexpectation, then it becomes irrelevant to the society it is supposed to serve. If anything, it can only be of a nuisance value. In a multi-party democracy, such as we have in this country, it is important to have a credible, I stress credible - opposition party as an alternative government. In order for an opposition party to be credible, it must articulate policies and programmes relevant to the needs of the people. Furthermore, it should not just be a difference of personalities or personal style; as I said, it must be differences of policy-programmes that are relevant to people's needs. Itwill be a very poor return for the people of this country if Botswana politicians are to engage in the politics of adversary. What this country needs is the politics of constructive debate and resolution. There is a tendency in this country for the opposition to smear the conduct of our elections as an exercise in futility. I am sure you have heard them say that the ruling party rigs elections or that sort of thing. No, we don't rig elections. We cannot do'tha sort of thing because it would be against our democratic tradition of mutual tolerance We want an opposition - a constructive and credible opposition. In any case, it is not possible for anyone to cheat at elections. How can we cheat anyway? In the first place, we have a secret ballot which the voter casts without influence or interference. Secondly, all the political parties participating at elections are represented at the polling booths and at all the centres where the counting of votes is done. Above all, elections are conducted bythe government only in name because in practice, they are conducted by the Civil Service - an impartial Civil Service. Our Civil Service is expected to be non-partisan, although an individual is entitled to hold a certain political persuasion and to vote accordingly. But in as far as serving the people is concerned and, in this particular case, as far as the conduct of elections is called, it is done by impartial people whose motive is to fulfil a public duty irrespective of party interest. Because the public servants are impartial, although they have the right to hold a view and to vote accordingly, it is implicit that those who conduct elections can hold different views of political persuasion. This is another built-in check in our system. The Civil Servants who conduct elections are not screened as such; they are appointed on merit - merit of job performance. Those who lose at elections, therefore, lose on the strength of the people's verdict and not on the electoral mechanics. It is therefore an insult to the people of any politician to allege cheating when the people themselves have rejected him. I have lost at elections before but I did not blame anyone for cheating. If rigging of elections was indeed practised by this government, do you think a Vice-President of the country could ever lose the elections? Nonsense I I say to you, and to all politicians of this country, that we must speak and act responsibly. We must conduct our politics according to the rules. After all, all gamesincluding football, have their rules. And the rules we use in conducting elections in this country are democratic and are of an international standard. In all the countries that have a multi-party democracy, as we do, political parties have their ups and downs. They are in government today and in opposition tomorrow, according to the people's verdict. It is important that we all accept the people's verdict and not to pour scorn on them by alleging malpractice at elections. It is irresponsible of anyone, therefore, to issue threats to voters that if they don't vote for him'to win, there'll be bloodshed. We have heard bad losers say these things before and they are now being echoed by another loser who has samplel almost all the political parties in this country. Please, please, do not issue threats to voters, let them exercise their right to vote freely as free people. If we, in this country, are denied the freedom of choice between parties, then any other freedom will be meaningless. This is because the freedom to exercise a free vote is basic to the concept of self-determination and sovereignty. As government, we have the duty to protect the rights of citizens against infringement by a foreigner or a fellow citizen. I can assure you that I will do my duty to defend people's rights, particularly the right to a free vote as granted by the Constitution of Botswana. When I said earlier that as politicians, we must speak and act responsibly, it is not because I want it so; it is because the people of Botswana deserve responsible and honest politicians. Politicians are supposed to lead the people and not to mislead them. The people of Botswana have a trust and a faith in their leaders and this good attribute should not be abused. Dishonest politicians are doing a great deal of harm, harm to the people when they beguile them, deceive them, tell them untrue stories about people or events, and distort policy-programmesthat arebeing contemplated or imp lementedb the government, It takes time for people to discover the truth, it takes time becaus our literacy is low and ourmedia facilities areinadequate. Let us not take advantago!,of these deficiencies to mislead the people. The right of a people to truth should not be compromised by short-term party political expediency. Our politics must be clean, clear and clinical. As we begin these seminar: discussion's, therefore,,we shouldtry to project ourviews onto the political scireen. as it eists in our country. The over-riding vuiew shoutld ,be to rejiuvenate urselve~- to rejuvenatethe politics of our country forothebene fi o 4r people. It is the essence of a seminar like this that at the end of it al theparticipants must feel that they have gained something new, something worthwhile. I have no doubt that this seminar will be conducted to satisfy these expectations. TSHOLETSA DOMKRAG I

THE BOTSWANA CONSTITUTION By I. S. Kirby (Attorney], Gaborone Kea itumela; Mr Chairman, Your Excellency, ladies and gentlemen. You have had the privilege of listening to a large number of professors and profe ssional lecturero of one sort or another over the last day and a half. Now, unfortunately, you are compelled to listen to a home boy who is an amateur. However, I will do the best that I can within my limited knowledge and ability. I suspect that I will suffer some difficulty today: there are a number of people in the front bench if I may callthem that, who are thoroughly familiar with the topic on which I am to address you and others - the back benchers - who, I hesitate to say, may not be familiar with the topic at all. I hope, because it is a duty of every politician to know the constitution, that everybody has a copy and I am sure every councillor Mr Chairman, does have a copy of the constitution and has read through it. I know that you are all able to get one freely at the Government Printers. I think it would be very difficult to advise your constituents on what your constitution states and what it protects, if you do not have a copy yourself. Mr Chairman you are all aware of the nature of the constitution. It is the founding law of our republic. It is the coming together of ideas chosen by Batswana from all the ideas that were available to our leaders from which they selected the set of rules by which Botswana was to be governed. It is the guideline from which all the other laws flow in Botswana. In German it is known as Grundnorm, the foundation set of principles against which all the other laws are tested. Of course, Mr Chairman, it is made by the people and equally it can be changed by the people. They have chosen a type of a constitution which makes it deliberately difficult to change, particularly the entrenched portions which affect all of our every day lives, and afford protection in every facet of our lives. If you read the constitution carefully, and I will go through it in more detail just now, it will be found that to amend some of the entrenched clauses requires first a notice period of thirty days, then another period of thirty days, then a period of ninety days before the second reading, and finally a referendum of the people. That is the most drastjc change that could be envisaged to the constitution, namely a change to our form of government, from .Parliamentary democracy to some other form of government. The constitution itself is divided into nine chapters. The first is a very short chapter consisting of just one section which proclaims the Republic of Botswana and that is where our country begins. . The second chapter deals in detail with fundamental rights and freedoms of the individual, which are basic to the whole constitution. In the case of England there was no such constitution, but all these freedoms were distilled from centuries of court cases until they became so entrenched in the law of England that they were taken to be obvious by everybody. When other democracies chose written constitutions, they selected from those rights and freedoms all the.very best and distilled them in their own constitutions in the form of a declaration of rights. That is the form of chapter II of our constitution. I think that the introductory section of chapter It, which is the preamble, summarizes that whole chapter and it states as follows: "Whereas every person in Botswana is entitled to the fundamental rights and freedoms of the individual, that is to say the right, whatever his race, place of origin, political opinion, colour, creed or sex, but subject to respect for the rights and freedoms of others and for the public interests, to each and all of the following: namely life, liberty, security of the person and the protection of the law, freedom.and conscience, of expression, of assembly and association, and protection of the privacy of his home and other property andi from deprivation of property without compensation." The provisions of this chap ter giv :effect to the above for. the purpose of- affording protection to those rights apd freedoms subject to such limitations as are contained in those provisions. The l imitations are designed to ensure that the enjoymentofhese rights and freedom by any individual does not prejudice the rights and freedoms of others nor that they prejudicel the public'interest. That is the spirit, Mr Chairman,'o G the whole constitution. All laws are read against that paragraph to see if they :imeasure up to the spirit of the constitution. That having been said, Mr Chairman, when one reads the next sections of chapter 11 it becomes clear that the exceptions to the rights and freedoms are defined in detail. Nobody will be allowed to confuse his freedom with the right to do what he pleases to the disability of others. It will be found that each of the freedoms is dealt with in great detail, and that the exceptions to each freedom are dealt with in similar detail. I will not go through each one because it would probably take two days. I would however, say this: that for every situation which could arise in political life which could give difficulties but might appear to be coming into confrontation with the constitution, there lies within the constitution itself a remedy, both in the form of political planning so that such a form of confrontation will never come about, and in the form of the exceptions themselves. Mr Chairman, the exceptions themselves are not, in fact, permits to except; - they are themselves a framework within which Parliament can legislate, and can pass a Criminal Procedure and Evidence Proclamation that says we may arrest somebody on suspicion of an offence - which will deprive him of his personal liberty. But it falls fairly and squarely within one of the exceptions. It is my submission, if I may use the word, that in the human rights section of the constitution there is a remedy to every political problem without the necessity of amending those basic freedoms in any way. I have given as an example that very right to personal liberty which is the basic right upon which most other rights are founded. The exceptions or limitations to that right amount to about fourteen in number where personal liberty can perfectly lawfully be interfered with, - but only, Mr Chairman, after the passing of a law founded on the constitution which allows that specific instance; for example, there are some exceptions which probably have not been used yet. Thus deprivation of personal liberty would be permissible under the constitution of a minor without the consent of his parent or guardian for his education or welfare during any period ending not later than the date when he attains the age of 18 years..So people could be forced by law to go to school and to stay in school without that being a deprivation of liberty not withstanding that they might be seventeen years old. There are a large number of other exceptions, of course. I think it is unnecessary, Mr Chairman, to deal in detail with each of these rights and privileges because I would like to leave more time for discussion and questions after these few words are over, since I think the subject is a very important one. I will stress again that I hope that everybody will find the opportunity to first of all read through the constitution and to explain it at least in its simpler provisions to his constituents. Mr Chairman, if the Councillors and the Members of Parliament don't explain the constitution to their constituents, then the constituents are living in a counrty, governed by a constitution of which they have no knowledge whatever, and that is not a very fair situation when it comes time to vote. Chapter III of the constitution, Mr Chairman, moves to citizenship and this is a subject that I will not deal with, since it is about to be removed from the constitution com- pletely. I think the reason why it was such a long chapter originally, was that it was necessary to contain all sorts of rules relating to cross agreements with Commonwealth countries and reciprocal agreements, many of which are probably not nearly as relevant as they were at the time of independence. Chapter IV deals with the Executive, namely the President and the Vice-President and the executive arms of Government as opposed to Parliament itself which is dealt with in the following chapter. The President of Botswana is, of course, an Executive; President subject to the overall authority of Parliament. I don't think it Is necessarytI go into the election procedures for the election of a President. I am sure that political:. seminars are held for that purpose. The qualifications for election as President and virtually every rule relating to his existence as President are clearly laid down In the con-. stitution so that thbre should be no room for argument or squabbling at any time. That, I think, is one of the great protections of the constitution as having been done a long time ago by independent persons, it can never be said to have been designed for the pleasure or privilege of any particular person. Anyone in Botswana from the humblest origin upwards has the opportunity to work his way up, to stand for Parliament and finally to stand for the Presidency. That is not a thing that can be said for many other countries. While the President has very extensive executive powers including the dissolution of Parliament, the appointment of Cabinet Ministers and the nomination of the functions of the Ministries and the appointment of all senior officials within the Government itself, it is only Parliament really which can give the President a final instruction to which he must say "yes". This is done, as you all know, on the question of assenting to a Bill. His Excellency has the power either to assent to a Bill passed by the House or not. If he does not assent to it he must return it to Parliament. If Parliament thereupon passes it again and he fails to assent to it within twenty-one days, then he must dissolve Parliament. It is another way of the vote of no confidence working. The President is subject to the overall authority of Parliament. Because of the aspects of the rule of law with which I will also deal in a moment, it is necessary for His Excellency, and you will excuse me for talking so impersonally on this subject, to be immune from all criminal prosecutions or civil actions, because it would not be appropriate for the Head of State, in whose name all proceedings are instituted, to find himself both the prosecutor and the prosecuted in the case. Obviously that is an exception that is made in every democratic constitution as in our own. The Cabinet is, of course, subject to the total control of the President in terms of our constitution in the execution of the executive duties. Section 47 of the Constitution provides specifically that the Executive Power of Botswana shall rest with the President and subject to the provisions of the constitution shall be exercised by him either directly or through officers subordinate to him. There is a specific provision that says that the President is not bound, despite the provisions of any section of the constitution to take the advice of any person or body on whose advice he acts. The command of the armed forces as well vests in the President, in terms of section 48 of the constitution. He has the power to hire or fire any member of the armed forced together with the right,.of course, to delegate that duty to other officers within ihe force. The Vice-President is responsible to give him assistance in terms of section 49, and the functions of the Cabinet are set out in section 50. It is unnecessary to go intothose sections in detail. The Office of the Attorney General and the Auditor General are dealt with and these again (in preservation of the rule of law and to safeguard misuse of position) are made offices from which persons cannot be removed even by the President, except in very exceptional circumstances, either of the attainment of retirement age or of misconduct. But even misconduct is very carefully monitored in the case of those two offices The only persons who can find the Attorney General or the Auditor General guilty of misconduct are the members of a judiciary commission consisting of three judges, and only they can make a recommendation to His Excellency the Pre fit,i who would then act on that recommendation. Of course the President would be the one to institute such a commission under the constitution. In addition to his other poWers the President enjoys the prerogativeof mercy which extends to every offence frem the lowest the tiihest. I know thatsoIe paeople th 1ik this applies only to cases Where capital nI~hment has been imposed. The President acts in conjunction witha committee donsisting of The Attorney General and oneidthqr person, but the decision is 'lsown. Chapter V of the constitution deals with Parliament itself and I hope'thate this sdctiolh is the one that is familiar to everybody present. It sets out the composition of Parliament. I think it would be an insult if I started lecturing the elected gentlementpresent from my position of very limited knowledge onhow Parliament is composed. I will skip that particular chapter, apart from saying that of the two Chambers of Parliament, the House of Chiefs is a purely advisory body that has absolutely no legislative power whatever, as I read the constitution. All the House of Chiefs can do is to delay the passing of a Bill for thirty days. That is the maximum extent of its power. It has an advisory function as well of course, but the advice also does not have to be heeded. There are certain areas of legislation which in terms of the constitution must, of course, be referred to the House of Chiefs: those touching on customary affairs and the chiefs may have a lot to say about those. They may even oppose them heatedly but they can only advise and their advice need not be heeded. That is an aspect of the sovereignty of the elected Parliament which forms the basis of the whole constitution: that it is the elected representatives of the people who will have the final say in the passing of every piece of legislation. I will digress at this point to say a few words about the sovereignty of Parliament as against the rule of law, which is a subject that does come up now and again. The sovereignty of Parliament means that Parliament is the only body which can itself change the constitution. But subject to that, Parliament is bound to obey its own constitution and to legislate within the spirit of the constitution. Parliament has given to the judiciary in the excercise of the rule of law the power to adjudicate whether its own laws measure up to the standards set by the constitution. This is why you find a number of what appear to be general expressions particularly in the Bill of Rights. It talks for example of matters that are reasonably required in the Interest of defence, public order, public safety, public morality and public health. Those are words which could be interpreted to mean anything. The Government might decide to use those words for legislation that states that in the interest of public health nobody should be allowed to swim or some other draconian or unreasonable type of legislation. Even though this might appearto be within the general definition, the Court can judge those words and the application of those words to legislation within the spirit of the whole constitution and declare the law invalid and Ultra Vires. Another very common expression which I think appears at least seven or eight times is that exceptions will be allowed except in so far as the provisions are or anything done under the authority thereof, is shown to be "reasonably justifiable in a democratic society". That expression is again one of the measures against which the Court will be asked to judge any law should a matter come before it for decision. That is not to say that Parliament does not have the right to amend any of these laws, including the basic freedoms. But it could do so only on the basis of the methods set out for the changing of the entrenched clauses. I should pause at this moment to say that the constitution is such a valuable document that it would be a great pity if the fact that the Government of the day enjoyed a very substantial majority, as our Government does, caused it to consider the constitution for that reason as just another law which can be changed without much argument. "Push it through the caucus, - we know it will go through the House, we might hear a few words from the back benchers, but nothing serious ._." This would reduce the cpnstitution really to the level of just any other law, but the constitution is in fact a distillation of the ideas of centuries of people working out how best we can govern and discipline ourselves. It is what Batswana chose. Out of all the systems and details that they might have chosen, Batswana chose this constitution. Personally, I would hope never to see an amendment of the entrenched clauses, and it would be a grave step to amend entrenched clauses of the constitution. But of course not all the constitution is entrenched. There are a large number of sections of it which are almost in the category of ordinary laws because they can be changed by a simple majority of the House. It is only those relating to the judiciary, to the form of Governmentto the Office of the President and to the fundamental rights which require the observance of very strict rules for their changing. The next chapter of the constitution deals with the Judicature. The judicature also get special protection under our constitution, because although Parliament gives itself the right to change anything that it wishes it also places upon itself a form of self discipline, a form of braking mechanism. Parliament allows independent persons of recognised qualification to test what it is doing against the rules which it set itself originally. That type of discipline results in democracy itself: it is submission to the Rule of Law, the ability to put ourselves to the test before independent people. In the words of Dicey the constitutional lawyer, the Rule of Law means that every man is equal before the law and everybody must be free of any form of arbitrary action. There must be no personal action taken by personalities against personalities by Government. Actions must be taken in accordance with the written law. For this reason we have a wide body of laws which cover virtually every facet of existence, so there is no room left for actions due to jealousy or nepotism or other forms of public arbitrariness of that sort. That form of action can almost always be challenged through the courts in one way or another. That is the real meaning of the Rule of Law. If the Government were to legislate to abolish the judiciary and have a government court which would just decide everything, that would be a purely arbitrary administrative type of Government. Mr Chairman, the judges themselves are protected by similar provisions to those protecting the Attorney General and the Auditor General, again to protect the independence of the judiciary. It is important that the judges should be able to operate without looking over their shoulders at the Executive, without fear or favour, just applying the constitution upon which they have to take an oath of allegiance before they assume their office. Therefore, a judge can only be removed in very exceptional circumstances as well, and again only by a tribunal of his peers for bad behaviour, or for health defects or for reaching retirement age. The Public Service is dealt with in Chapter VII of the constitution. The role of the Public Service is laid down in very great detail i.e. the composition of the Public Service and In particular the protection afforded by the Public Service Commission. The Chairman of the Public Service Commission himself enjoys the protection of the constitution because of his role in hiring and firing members of the public service, and because of the danger that if he were not an independent person, nepotism or favouritism of one kind or another could occur. For similar reasons the Chairman of the Public Service Commission has to be a person who Las been unconnected with politics and he must be independent in that way. The eigth Chapter of Parliament sets out the Financial provisions. Again it is a self-imposed discipline and a self-imposed protection that we have placed on ourselves with regard to the handling of our finances. This section of the constitution states that no public moneys of whatever nature will be handled otherwise than in terms of the constitution which lays down strict rules as to their handling. The income of the nation goes into the nation's bank account and it is only paid out by authorised signatories with the authority of the nation. That is the spirit of the section on finance. Once again there are small exceptions laid down: contingency funds which may be set aside for day-to-day emergencies that may arise, and for which Appropriation Bills cannot be passed in time. There is a small miscellaneous section at the end of the constitution which deals with resignations, with definitions and with other general matters about which, it is not important to go into in detail. That, Ladies and Gentlemen, is the essence of our Constitution. I think I would stress again that every Motswana has the right to know what is said in the constitution. He has the right to know what his own rights are. He has to know what he can do. He must also know Mr Chairman, the limitations of his rights. In other words, when you go back to your constituencies and teach your constituents, which I am sure will happen, about the constitution, they will be taught that it is not only a list of rights but also a list of responsibilities towards the community: not to interfere with other people's freedom, not to interfere with other people's property and to behave in such a manner that nobody else's rights are interfered with at all. I hope that all of you will take the trouble (and I am sure most of you have already done so) to read right through the constitution so that you are able to answer all the questions put by your constituents and others and to educate people in that way. Thank you Mr Chairman.

COMMENTS & ANSWERS The Botswana Constitution CHAIRMAN COMMENTS: Thank you very much Mr Kirby. I believe that you have your questions ready so that you can go and better explain the constitution of Botswana when you get back to your constituencies or your wards. I am sure, if Mr Kirby was a politician, he would have heard that some politicians from the opposition have always stated that the constitution was imposed by the colonial government on Botswana. That is not true. Many of you may be having doubts as to the origin of the constitution. Perhaps His Excellency would explain this better to you. I was a spectator when the constitution was being drawn and he was an actor. The political parties that existed in Botswana at that time were represented when the constitution was being drawn in Lobatse. As I told the Youth Seminar last time, from the colonial government's side at that time, there was Peter Fawcus and Arthur Douglas, after that there was Allen Tilburythe Attorney General. For the Botswana Democratic Party, who sat at the table in drawing the constitution were the late Sir Seretse Khama, President Masire and Mr Nwako. From the Peoples' Party and it was a splitting Peoples' Party at that time already, because there was a problem with the vehicles: Mr Motsete, who was the President, used to walk from Peleng to the meeting while PG Matante came in one of the only surviving land rovers. I do not know how Mr Mpho came to the meeting. Those were the three from the Opposition Parties. The constitution was drawn in Lobatse in a pre-fab house which I think one of these days should be declared a public monument. After the constitution had been drawn, all the people that I have mentioned carried the constitution to London and met Mmamosedinyana and said ... I am sorry the Chiefs were represented by Kgosi Bathoen as he was then, late Kgosi Mokgosi and present Kgosi Linchwe. Itwas these people who carried this constitution to the Queen and said "we want our independence on these conditions. And right at the end of it all Mr P.G. Matante decided to walk before everybody else and said: well, ke "ngadile". I just wanted to give you that information so that when you are at freedom square meetings and people start saying to you, this has been imposed on us by the colonial government, you must know and you should be able to say who the people were who drew the constitution in Lobatse. I do not know whether His Excellency would like to comment. FLOOR COMMENT: Mr Chairman, thank you very much for giving me this short time to raise a point, Now, / heard from Mr Kirby that it will take him two days to go through the constitution if he were given the time to do so. / appreciated the approach that he made in making a cross-section of the whole constitution in a shorter time than the two days that he had mentioned. I am of the opinion that it would be worth while for other members, not necessarily members who are here, if some brief notes were made and handed out to be used so that when one uses the constitution, because it is written in legal language, he would actually be free to present these in ordinary language and where argument arises, then he quotes from the real constitution which is written in the legal language. Otherwise for a layman just to take the constitution as it is and read, may not make much sense to whoever it has been addressed to. / do not know whether this message has been heard correctly. COMMENT: Mr Chairman, in .one of his remarks Mr Kirby said, there are some items in the constitution which needed some referendum, like the judiciary. My question is, does that mean the whole judiciary structure or some part of the judiciary because it is now one of the commonest cries of the people that some part of the judiciaries, like trying of stock theft in the magisterial court, has a lot of disadvantages for Botswana. Things like that, are they enshrined or are they part of what has been enshrined in the constitution? That is the only question Mr Chairman. ANSWER: Thank you Mr Chairman. First of all I would say that I welcome the suggestion for a people's guide to the constitution, a small pamphlet that would set out what the constitution says in every day language for the benefit of anyone who wants to read it - maybe somebody will do something about that and make that available. Secondly, as regards the judiciary itself, the constitution only sets out a framework for the judiciary. It sets out how judges are to be appointed and how magistrates are to be appointed. It sets down very little in the way of jurisdictional matters. In fact the Customary Court Act and the Subordinate Courts' Act and the High Court Act and if necessary the Penal Code, could in my opinion be amended to allow Customary Courts to exercise a higher jurisdiction than they do now, should it be required. In fact, Mr Chairman, there are provisions already for that, should it be required. I believe many Customary Courts do try cases of quite a serious nature and do sentence for periods of up to two years. So I do not think any change to the constitution is necessary to effect any wishes of that sort. COMMENT Mr Chairman, there is a reference in the constitution to discrimination. I noted that it is in regard to religion, race, creed, but sex is not one of them. I would like to ask the lecturer whether there is a presumption of equality in the constitution and if this is so, whether the omission is not in conflict with the spirit of the constitution. Thank you Mr Chairman. COMMENT: The question Mr Chairman is on the issue of immunity of the President from being charged with criminal. I want to know if, in case of a scandal like that in South Africa for instance of the Information Scandal, it is found that the President was involved and the matter tried, what happens to the President? Does he still remain immune? Thank you sir. COMMENT: Mr Chairman, our country provides for a multi party democracy and by that, one can hope that the possibility of another government besides the Botswana Democratic Party Government is not far fetched. I would like to know how far and to what extent can or would the incoming governments from say one of the opposition parties today, be bound to adhere and observe the existing constitution of Botswana. Secondly, the constitution does provide for the judiciary and there are feelings from certain quarters that when we talk of the independence of our judiciary, how can we believe and accept the fact that our judiciary is independent when in fact whoever is to head the judiciary section of our government is appointed by the Head of State of a party in power at any given time. Can you elaborate on this because as I say, there are doubts in the minds of some people that we might have a party in power today with some control and the upper hand on the functions of the judiciary to our own advantages and to the disadvantages of other organisations or parties.

ANSWER: Thank you Mr Chairman. First of all, it is quite correct that sex discrimination is not referred to in the particular section of the constitution on discrimination. I think it is a fact that throughout history there have been forms of discrimination of one sort or another against women. My particular view is that these should be totally outlawed. As it stands at the moment, our constitution does not outlaw them, so any rule, any law that was passed by Parliament which discriminated against women on the grounds of sex would not necessarily on that ground be declared unconstitutional, in my personal opinion. Judges might of course differ. But it would be possible to amend the constitution to make that absolutely clear. There are, however, ridiculous situations that cap arise from that and I do not know whether Parliament would like its women forcing their way into the boxing ring for example, as has happened in some other countries and there are certain spheres where it might be difficult for women to participate in the usual way. The second question concerns the immunity of a person holding the office of the President from the prosecution of criminal or civil offences: the position is simply that whilst he holds office he is not responsible and he is not accountable for such actions. But should a vote of no confidence be passed and should he cease to hold office, he would thereupon become accountable for things done during that term of office. This is how I understand the situation. The next question, asking what would bind an incoming Government to adhere to our constitution: I am afraid the answer lies quite simply in how people are brought up to react to their constitution. If people are brought up at every level of age and every level of schooling to believe that the constitution is sacrosanct, and we are not a country that has been bedevilled by armed over-throw of governments or any such unconstitutional actions, then one would hope that democracy would prevail. But democracy can never prevail against the might of persons who are prepared to tear up the constitution. The strength of the constitution rests only in the belief of the people in it and an incoming government if it was strong and foolish enough could probably tear it up with all the resultant anarchy. So you have to trust the people and educate the people about the constitutio.n itself, so that no one should be tempted to try government by anarchy. The independence of the judiciary was raised next; it stated: how can we have an independent judiciary when our Head of States appoints the Chief Justice. I think that my answer has to be this, that if the Head of State does not appoint him who will appoint him? Whoever does appoint him, will that result in a similar form of lack of independence? I think when we elect our head of state, we give him the credit of making a honourable choice for Chief Justice to uphold the rule of law, rather than somebody who will pander to every whim of the government of the day. The Judicial Services Commission consist of other people and in appointment of the other judges, the President acts on the advice of the Judicial Services Commission. COMMENT Thank you Mr Chairman. My first question is,. what is the function of the House of Chiefs as opposed to that of Parliament, because Members of Parliament will call meetings to say we are going to Parliament, and I have never heard of any Chief calling his people as they call us to tell him what is to be done in the House of Chiefs, except that he can say my order has been to give you eight strokes. The second question is when will members of the opposition parties know that the President is entitled to specially elect some members to perform functions of the Members of Par-

/lament. The third one Mr Chairman is how do we expect the people who implement the government policy to go on the right way because a year or two back we had this issue of ALDEP brought to Parliament and the Members of Parliament went out to tell us that we should interpret this to the electorates. Yesterday, it was the same House which said this issue should be erased because it is a donkey business. So, how do we expect the people to carry the mandate of the government policy to go about implementing this. Thank you Mr Chairman. COMMENT: Thank you Mr Chairman. I have more than once been confronted with. the difficult question of explaining which is more valuable: property or life, Because it is contained in our constitution people have the right to property and shall be compensated without any doubt. People are happy they are compensated, they are never underpaid.. The only question is that of taking another person 's life, where it is felt a murderer is given more privilege; even when he appeals for the first time in court, he is guilty of an offence yet the court still feels they must go on incurring unnecessary expenditure to let the murderer defend himself. But it is contained in our constitution thatno person has the-right to take another person's life. Now, people want to know if there is no section in the constitution which states clearly that for taking one's life, one's lifehas got to be taken to repay that life, COMMENT: Mr Chairman, I would like you to clarifysomething to me since you said you were there when the constitution was drawn. We always hear allegations from the opposition parties. that when this constitution was drawn there was somebody who represented Mmamosadinyana who was dictating to our two party leaders what to do. I think that is the reason why Mr Matante had to leave because he said he could not take the paper that was dictated. I want to know from you Mr Chairman, since you were there, whether this is true. ANSWER: Thank you Mr Chairman. First the question on the powers of the House of Chiefs. As I think I said, in terms of the constitution the function of the chiefs is advisory. Their greatest power is to delay the passage of the Bill by thirty days and that is only a Bill which in terms of the constitution has to be referred to that House. That is any Bill that relates to customary matters and no doubt the chiefs, if they do their job as members of the House of Chiefs, will take back any such legislation to the Kgotla to discuss the customary aspects with people in their particular areas of operations, but in terms of executive or legislative powers they get nothing from the constitution. The second question is how would the opposition know about specially elected Members of Parliament. Well, everybody in Parliament elects the specially elected Members of Parliament, they are not just elected by the President. The President has the power to make four nominations and other members of Parliament equally have the power to put as many nominations as they wish and a secret ballot takes place in the House. So the opposition can vote if they wish, and there cannot be any secrecy about the specially elected Members of Parliament. The other question asked was not really a constitutional question but perhaps a political question. I think the short answer is just as Parliament has the right to make up its mind, Parliament also has the right to change its mind. So if it appears to people that something that might have been decided as a preliminary matter is inadvisable or unpopular, then it may just decide to change its mind. Parliament will change its mind by majority vote and that is democracy. The next question concerns the issue of capital punishment. I mentioned that to all the basic'freedoms there were exceptions in the constitution. Capital punishment is one of those. People can be hanged for murder without extenuating circumstances in Botswana and I think the answer to the question as to why people should have the expense of defence and all the rest instead of just being hanged around the corner is: would you like to be defended? If you pleaded guilty, the question of extenuating circumstances then is the only thing which arises. There may be a situation where you killed somebody, where in fact an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth is not appropriate. Were you motivated by the most terrible anger, having found your wife in bed with a neighbour or something of that sort, that would amount' to extenuating circumstances, and no right thinking person would take your life away for that. COMMENT: Thank you Mr Chairman. When the speaker addressed himself to the Chapter of the citizenship he seemed to swallow his words. I did not quite. get what he said, whether he said the chapter should be done away with. completely or there should be some amendments. Secondly,. I would like to thank the speaker for his advice that we the politicians should try and educate or know.the Botswana Constitution so as to pass it over to the electorates because it would be unfair to the electorates if they do not know their constitution. At present we seem to have opposition party members taking an advantage over the ruling party because they seem to confuse the constitution of the party with. the constitution of Botswana. When a Bill goes through Parliament, and they think they can stand up and damage the ruling party, they will always refer to the ruling party as saying "ke ya Iona" meaning that they were not part and parcel of the people who were around the table when this constitution was drawn. So I think, as the speaker mentioned earlier, that perhaps this topic would have taken a few days but our leaders or the people in .the front line should try and educate us. We should know this constitution very well. Thank you Mr Chairman. COMMENT: Mr Chairman, l am not really making a comment. I am merely indicating that something along the lines suggested about a laymen's version is being done. We want the constitution to be part of our schools" syllabus, but it takes time, because we do itin the Ministry and we must be perfectly sure that we do it the right way so it goes backward and forward between the Attorney General and my Ministry. We want to make sure that when the constitution says something, we don 't say the other. I think when that is finished, it will benefit a lot of people. COMMENT: Thank you Mr Chairman. Part of my question has been answered i.e. there is great concern in the country today concerning capital punishment. Many people murder other people, they go all out with. it. Now the question is, .is it the weakness of ourjudiciary? Perhaps you could put us in the picture because this is being expressed in the country. The other thing is,. because the Head of State in accordance with our constitution is above the law, I want to find a line of demarcation because whatis happening in the country is that at times you find that people have crossed the line in making perhaps malicious, statements. COMMENT: Mr Chairman, my question concerns the House of Chiefs. We have been told that the constitution says the House of Chiefs is there just to advise, and its advice may be needed or it may not. What happens if the House of Chiefs becomes political, i.e. instead of advising on customary issues they become highly political to such an extent that they call people to tell them that they are there just to check on the Members of Parliament that they do not misuse monies. Are they still within the limits of their constituted House of Chiefs or are they crossing the line, and if they are crossing the line of their limits, what should be done constitutionally to set them right? COMMENT" Mr Chairman i would like to know whether a district council can actually take government to court if government, for a public purpose, acquires the land from that particular district council and if that particular district council is unhappy particularly with the compensation. I saw in the constitution that there must be prompt compensation. / am saying this because of farmers like those we have here, but particularly a farm like Bonnington where we had to pay because the man was very difficult. He wanted a tremendous sum of money and of course that money had to be paid in terms of the constitution as compensation. My question is, can a district council similarly and constitutionally demand such a kind of compensation? ANSWER: Thank you Mr Chairman. Dealing with the first question, in fact I did not comment on the sections dealing with citizenship. I think that is a matter which is being removed from the constitution by constitutional means. It is not an entrenched portion of the constitution. It is a portion of the constitution which can be amended by simple majority and commissions having gone around and people having decided that they wish to amend it, so it is going to be dealt with or is being dealt with by the Citizenship Act. It would therefore be irrelevant for me to speak on sections of the constitution that actually still deal with this. I believe there is a short interim period, with the constitution already amended but the Citizenship Act not in force yet. But that is the only relevance to the constitution at the moment. The thing that we have in the constitution bythe replacing Act is a single sentence which says that the existing Citizenships aciluired before the coming into effect of the act will not be affected by the new one. That is now the whole section on Citizenship in the constitution. Coming now to the question of a party and the constitution of Botswana, that was more a comment than a question and I agree with you the distinction should be brought to the notice of the people. The next question dealt with people getting away with murder. In my submission the right not to get away with it yet to be properly defended is a strength of our constituion rather than a weakness of it. There is a section of the constitution which says that every man is innocent until he has been "proven" guilty. Anyone can make a mistake, and if somebody makes a mistake, let it be a trained person, because our lives are in the hands of those very judges. There is another saying which saysthot it is better that ninety-nine guilty men go free than that one innocent man be hanged for a crime he did not commit. I think that is what is being followed as well, it is the principle of the reasonable doubt. That is the whole body of the law on the side of the accused, if you like, butwe only hang him when we know for absolute certain and beyond any reasonable doubt that he is guilty. I think the true test is to put yourself in the place of an accused murderer, someone who is falsely accused and then your test will begin to make sense. This test does not make sense when you watch somebody else facing a charge, but it really does when you are on a charge yourself. The next question concerns the House of Chiefs and whether or not it might be said to be mis-representing its status under the constitution of Kgotla. I think that the constitution, although this is obviously a personal opinion, was not intended to do away with the chieftainship. They still haved a traditional role of advising people on political matters from day to day, on customary matters from day to day and anyone who gives advice on matters like this can be listened to, at the wish of the people who are listening. So I do not think one should give too much importance to the fact that people choose to advise where they do not do it rightly. That is one of the freedoms we have, to advise people badly or rightly.

I think that the last question raised an extremely difficult constitutional problem which arises from the fact that district councils were not really the original owners of the land at all. The original owners were the individual tribes according to earlier systems. An individual tribe could bring government to court because it is not an organ of government. A district council is in fact one of the lower organs of government and I think it is precluded from bringing the governmentinto court. In fact, the government is effectively taking its own land when it is taking the district council's land. So, to talk of compensation would then be: probably the district councils took over the land from the tribes themselves, and that is the time when this argument should have been raised. Today that time has passed. COMMENT: My question Mr Chaiman is that there are so many people who are being accused and who go free, thanks to this long process of defending them, on technicalities. The Batswana are getting worried why this is happening yet people seem to be getting killed, The second one was not answered, i.e. the one of the Head of State, to draw the line how far people can make damaging statement without being taken to court. ANSWER: Thank you Mr Chairman. I think that the question that is being raised is rather a basic one and could be said to relate back to jury trials in a way. In many countries the jury system was adopted whereby a person was tried by people of similar background to himself, who would decide whether he was guilty or not. This was abolished so as not to allow emotions sometimes to carry the day. There are particularly unpleasant cases for example, when a child or an elderly person gets murdered and the emotions of the public are carried so high that the evidence takes second place. And there might be an innocent person charged with those very horrible sort of offences, where everybody wants him hanged. But it is really only the judge, who deals with hundreds of murder cases, who is no longer personally affected. You can look at it objectively. Secondly, the role of a lawyer himself I think is very often misunderstood. People will say, look at that creature, he is defending a stock thief. That is the sort of impression given. And again the answer is very simple. When you become a lawyer, you take on yourself some of the professional duties which regrettably sometimes have not been followed by some people, butyou do have a professional duty to afford the person the protection that he is entitled to under the constitution. For the very same reason that people have said - how can our constituents know what the constitution says - these people should not be allowed to go to court and be intimidated without even knowing that they have any freedoms; the duty of the lawyer is to make sure that those rights are respected during the trial. The duty of the lawyer is not to tell lies for his client. And if my client comes to me and says x, y and z, I will not stand up in court and say the truth is a, b and c. The client in the first place must plead guilty and lay himself at the hands of the court, giving evidence in mitigation of the sentence. Secondly, he has the right to remain silent and to have his case proved against him but then the lawyer can not accuse other people in court of being the ones who committed the offence, whatever it was. The state also has a duty to prove that he is guilty. My personal position is that when people tell me they are guilty, they are to go into court and plead guilty or I do not defend them. But there is a school of thought that says they are entitled to plead guilty and to have the case proved against them and for that they can go into court and exercise the rights they have been given under the constitution we have been talking about.

COMMENT: Mr Chairman I have been legally advised that is is not the district councils that hold the land but the land boards. Now, my question is the same, but substituting landboards for district councils. Would your answer still be relevant? ANSWER: Mr Chairman, I think the position of the land board in terms of the Tribal Land Act has also really brought it within the ambit of Parliament. There is an election procedure for the land board if I am not mistaken. There are one or two ex officio appointments. But I can say this, that I believe that you could argue very strongly for both sides that the tribe is actually being deprived of land without compensation by that Act if somebody chose to do so. It is obviously an extremely delicate matter as it would affect every square inch of tribal land inthe whole of Botswana, because I do not think anybody is being compensated for a square inch. But if we were to do that, we would effectively hold our country to ransom. It could not be done in the realities of the situation, people would say that our land is communally held land, our government is a communal government, our government dealswith our land as ourselves and I think it would be a pity for the land boards to start having a parochial interest in particular compoensations. This is a common thing, a peoples' electoral thing, and it should be handled in that way. Mr Chairman, there was another question asked about crossing the line about freedom of speech and what amounts to traditional or criminal defamation, and I think the answer on that one is fairly clear too. There are exceptions laid down in the constitution where your freedom of speech can be curtailed and that is where it interferes with the privacy, integrity or freedom of others. Also, the Penal Code lays down various offences of which you can be ronvicted if you cross the line. Of course, in the hurly burly of politics it is more difficult to cross the line than for a person standing up for example at a formal meeting. Freedom square statements are not always taken quite as seriously as statements made for example to the press or Radio Botswana. COMMENT: Mr Chairman, we live in a troubled world and we believe that man is man everywhere, whether he is white or black. What often puzzles me concerns the acts of a man in a liberation war, who may destroy life or attempt to destroy life somewhere, and a certain type of government which we think is oppressive, takes steps against that person for destruction of life. We take people like Bishop Desmond Tutu who encourages murder for the cause of liberation: he is a hero according to most of the countries in the North. Now, my point is when I say man is man every time and anywhere: a man is armed to go and destroy life somewhere in the name of liberation, but perhaps it is not because he wants to liberate people but because he wants power, he is power hungry. Then that particular government takes him to court and he is found guilty of murder and sentenced to death. Then you find that the African states begin to sympathize with that murderer. Probably he was armed with the intent of destroying a small village. Somewhere in the North probably somebody who lostpower to somebody wants to destroy about 40 people, because he feels they are against the legitimate government. But you never hear the neighbouring state say: do not kill those people, we only say something about liberation. I would really like to know when man becomes a man and deserves liberation. COMMENT; Thank you Mr Chairman. Mine is about stock theft. I have problems there becausesometimes, you see a man being arrested, having stolen somebody's beast. After being investigated by the police officers, he goes to see his legal adviser and when that man is taken to court, he will be acquitted although his statement agrees with the investigation of the police officers. Is that fair Mr Chairman, or not?

COMMENT: Thank you Mr Chairman, The question / want to ask is in connection with the person who has been charged with.murder and thereafter sentenced to death, and after he was executed the person who was suspected to have been murdered appears. Now what action is going to be taken in terms of the constitution? COMMENT: Mr Chairman, I wanted to know from Mr Kirby just how independent is the Attorney General when it comes to prosecution. Can he be directed to prosecute certain people or can he be directed by the President not to prosecute certain people, The other thing is that it was said that laws should be governed by democratic principles. Are these details somewhere in the constitution or are these to be deduced from other systems elsewhere. ANSWER: Thank you Mr Chairman. The first comment dealt with the question of a man becoming a man and various other matters. I think the only difficult situation that arises from the question raised is when Botswana supports in principle the liberation struggle of a neighbouring country and a murder is committed within Botswana in the name of the neighbouring country's liberation struggle. I think that the answer to that one has to be clear, in the interests of good government, that anybody who either takes refuge or finds himself on the soil of Botswana must respect the laws of Botswana. He can not call upon justifications that would apply over the border to justify an act done in Botswana. In other words, if he has got to wage his liberation struggle, he should do it in the jurisdiction which does not affect the upholding of the Botswana laws. It would be a terribly difficult situation if anybody could say that I committed a crime in the name of the liberation struggle because in every court everywhere we would be hearing that defence and it would be extremely difficult to choose between true fighters in the liberation struggle and those who are posing as such. So I think that each country has to maintain its integrity of law for that purpose, nothing can be done about that. Of course, H is Excellency the President retains the final prerogative of mercy, and that is one area in which there is a possibility for political decisions to be made, perhaps in very rare circumstances. The courts would deal with it in the normal way - whether there was an intention to kill or any mitigating circumstances; if there were none, and the man must be sentenced to death, over then to His Excellency for prerogative of mercy: and he might say "the Deceased was a well known South African spy, it is a terribly difficult situation". And in those circumstances and at the request of the international community, he might exercise his prerogative. That might happen. The second question, expressing dissatisfaction with stock thieves who go free, here I agree totally. I have also suffered from stock thieves who have gone free. Mr Chairman, the problem is that the stock thief is the same as a man who seals six pence from the safe in the revenue office and the same as a man who steals a lollypop in the supermarket. He is a thief of a specialised nature, and that type of theft carries with it a higher sentence and I suspect or believe that the problem is being solved to a large degree by allowing what is effectively a formal jury trial for stock thieves. They go to Kgotla and if the roar of thq people testifies to their guilt, they go, and I must say in fairness that it is not very often that injustice does result from that particular sort of case. But it would be equally horrible to be the one against whom justice was perpetrated and it is that protection of the one in a hundred that must remain paramount. The next question asked: what if a person is hanged for murder and it turns out that he is the one in a hundred who was found guilty on a wrong decision? First of all, may I say that if it had been a jury or a customary court trial, the chance probably would have been 50% instead of 1% of people turning up who were presumed dead. So, we prefer to have experienced judges with an objective decision, but if it were to happen, the situation is this: first of all, the guilty man is not exempted from any sort of trial because somebody has been convicted of that murder. He faces his trial.

Secondly, His Excellency would then grant a free pardon post mortem for the accused person, but the difficulty would really come on the part of his wife and children who have lost the support of their bread-winner. Unfortunately, their path to justice is beset with difficulties because for very obvious reasons the police force and all the agencies of the state are protected on investigations done in good faith. It would be absolutely unsatisfactory that a policeman could be sued every time somebody was found not guilty. And that, when you think about it, is exactly the same principle, but with far more drastic consequences as when somebody is found guilty as a result of the police investigations but subsequently his lack of guilt is uncovered. Because in the same way the police make their investigation docket to the best of their ability. The policeman does not decide. The judge decides on the best evidence available and he is only human. He may decide to acquit the person who has now been in jail for six months and that person cannot, as a general rule, take action against the police who have acted in good faith, doing their dutytrying to protect the rest of us. Similarly, the innocent man who is found guilty and serves his sentence (because it's not only when people are hanged that the real culprit turns up), would also have found difficulties on his part in bringing an action for damages, provided the police acted in good faith and the magistrate acted in good faith too. Of course if he could prove malice on the part of the pofice, then he has a case and he will recover full damages; otherwise he can not, and the presumption is that the police were doing their duty. That is the most difficult type of case to bring forward. The next question was: how independent is the Attorney General, can he be directed? The answer is that he is totally independent and he can not be directed. The power to institute prosecution is vested on the Attorney General in terms of the constitution in the expectations that as one of the experts of the rule of law he will be a perfectly independent person and will decide on perfectly independent principles whether or not to prosecute. But should it be shown that in the exercise of his discretion he shows clearly provable favouritism or nepotism or plain unfairness and that could be proved, I have no doubt that the panel of the judges who are then going to be called to judge hm at the request of the President would find that he has misbehaved, and was not the right person to be the Attorney General who has the highest duty of independence. COMMENT: Mr Chairman, my question hinges on the right to life. I take it that every Motswana has that right. Yet here you have one individual among Batswana threatening Batswana with. the barrel of a gun, and the judiciary, being the watch dog of that right, cannot take steps against that individual. Could you please elaborate on that. My second question is a follow-up on a previous question because I was not happy with your response. A criminal goes to a series of courts and is found guilty, ultimately lands in the Appeals Court and there he is set free. Does that not indicate the weakness of the judiciary? COMMENT, Mr Chairman I heard Mr Kirby saying the constitution can be amended. Now, my question is, after the constitution has been amended, how long does it take to revise that constitution to fit in a clause which was amended? ANSWER: Mr Chairman, I neglected to answer the second question which asked why we talk about democratic principles all the time yet the democratic principles appear not to be defined in the constitution. I think the answer to that question Is that the constitution itself is the collection of those democratic principles and in particular the

Section relating to the Delimitation Commission which states that the population of Botswana will be divided by number for the purposes of constituencies and the elections will take place by those constituencies in terms of the universal adult suffrage. I think that is the pivot of democracy, where you vote within constituencies for a Parliamentary system, and from there you vote for an executive President who runs it for you. There are other references in the appropriate sections to generally accepted democratic principles and those are what you judge against. And generally accepted democratic principles, in another word, are the rights themselves. The courts have been asked to judge whether a limitation on a right is reasonable in the context of a free society, in the context of where people can exercise free choice; they are entitled to the protection of themselves and the other liberties. The court is given the right to define that term. I think if one tried to define that term one would end up with a definition that would require to be defined again. So somewhere one has got to call a halt and say - in the hearts of all men we know what our basic freedoms are. They are written for us here and we ask a respected person whom we have picked out ourselves to adjudicate on the matter and that is what judges are all about. In fact, that is what Courts of Appeal are all about. We do not have to have a Court of Appeal, Ladies and Gentlemen. We have one because we want one. And we have the people that we chose to be the Court of Appeal. We want people to decide whether we are guilty or innocent. So, to say that the system is bad because we chose them is really to beat the question. We are getting what we want. It would be wrong to say we do not want what we want because that is the effect of the Court of Appeal question. The next participant asked about the right to life and also, I presume, he was referring to politicians who issue threats about bringing about change through the barrel of a gun, with all the connotations that carries. I think the answer to that is again, that we have quite a wide range of laws that deal with various treasonable offences. I have no doubt that several sections refer to people who make utterances in which they talk about over-throwing the government of the day by force rather than on the basis of democratic principles. A statement saying that we are going to overthrow you by the barrel of the gun would be probably a treasonous statement. But I pause there. The statement which says, "if x, y and z happen to be, in that event our people might be forced by frustration to do a, b and c" is entirely a different cup of tea and that is probably the difficulty that faces us here. It is like in the context of South Africa, people say that as a result of various forms of oppression, the only avenue of self expression is now through the barrel of a gun, or if somebody says "look, if you in Parliament make a law saying that I cannot send my children to school or I am going to be hanged if I steal six pence then, all these things are going to happen". That is very different from saying "I am going to overthrow you". I think I have dealt with the question on the Court of Appeal. The fact that the Court of Appeal acquits somebody is not a weakness and it certainly would not be seen as a weakness if you found yourself in the shoes of the acquitted - that is always the test when we deal with rights of the individual. When we judge a law we must imagine ourselves at the other end of the gun and then we must decide if that is a fair law or an unfair law. The next question concerned the amendment of the constitution and the time it takes. Of course, there the situation varies between the entrenched clauses of the constitution and the clauses of the constitution which really have the status of other laws because they can be amended by simple majority in Parliament. Section 89 of the constitution divides the entrenched clauses into two sections. The first section is Chapter II which deals with the right of the individual and of course the exceptions to those rights. Section 30 to 34 inclusive deal with the Office of the President and the powers of the Presidency. Section 47 to 51 deal with the Executive Powers of the Cabinet and Section 56 deals with the Presidential

Powers. Section 77 to 85 deal with the House of Chiefs and its advisory powers. Chapter 7 deals with the independence of the Public Service Commission. Section 118 to 121 deal with major financial changes. Section 128 deals with various matters of interpretations related to them. Those are the entrenched clauses in the first part which can be amended by Parliament acting alone and they would be amended with these conditions: first of all the final voting on the Bill must not take not less than three months after the previous voting there has taken place. Secondly there must be at least a thirty day publication in the Gazette before it is introduced. Thus you have four months before that voting can take place and that is intentionally done to make it difficult to amend the constitution, so that there is a lot of time for reflection before rushing through a motion in some political crisis to amend the constitution. The second class of entrenched clauses relates to the Parliamentary system of government. If you wish to change the Parliamentary system of government which combines first of all the offices of Parliament and secondly the institutions of judiciary, then you have to opt for the referendum procedure. There you first publish for thirty days, you then have the Bill and the Bill has to go for a further ninety days. You then have to have a referendum of the whole electorate before you can change the actual form of government. So that has to be a pure reflection of what the people are saying at a referendum, following an election campaign saying we intend to do this and we intend to do that. Obviously the mechanics of a referendum would ensure that such an amendment probably would take about nine months after the proposal, which by anybody's standards would be a very adequate time for reflection. I might stress at this stage that the additional point of difficulty that is normally placed in the way of changing constitutions does not apply in Botswana for political reasons, and that is that a two thirds majority must be there for the changing of either of the two entrenched clauses. COMMENT: Mr Chairman, I am not quite sure whether this very extensive comment answers the question. / think this question, if I do not misinterpret it, is the one we fought about in the House, about the constitution being amended and the actual pieces of amendments not appearing in the booklet. I was going to say we will find a question that will fit in the answer given. But the question, which i understood very well, is that there is no constitutional provision for issuing a constitutional booklet. COMMENT: Thank you Mr Chairman. I was merely going to raise a point of order to follow up on what was said and the answer Mr Kirby has given, regarding the possibilityof somebody being sentenced to death and hanged until he is dead, and later it is proved that he was not the actual culprit. i know Mr Kirby has tried to give us the answer but he has not come down to mother earth to tell exactly what would happen. / know the relatives would feel offended, they will feel sad about it and so on, but the blame has got to be attached somewhere. This / think is what we wanted to know, whether we apologise as the judiciary, and there is nothing further we can do. I would like Mr Kirby to really come down to the logical conclusion of his answer because so far he has left it in abeyance. COMMENT Mr Chairman, in order to make Mr Kirby understand my question properly, I would like to cite a case which took place before the present government was elected into power. During the time of Tshekedi and Seretse's squabble, a certain gentleman was charged with murder. The reason why he was charged was that during the night he found a young chap in the kraal with his goats and when this chap saw a man coming along, he ran away and he left his blanket in the kraal. The following morning the boy could not be found. He had run away to Serowe. The parents of this young chap wanted him to tell them where their kia was because a blanket was found in his possession and the evidence was corraborated. The man was executed because the argument was that after killing this young chap, he must have thrown him in the river, So this man was hanged here in Gaborone and Tshekedi claimed his body to go and bury him at Pilikwe. And according to Botswana custom there was this suspicion that they killed him so that they could go and make their village at Rametsane strong, Now the chap is at home. What we want to know is, in terms of the constitution, how do you treat a matter like this one? COMMENT: Mr Chairman, mine is also a very short question. In fact I had not intended to ask it because I am always fascinated by the legal profession. I think ours is a very fine constitution with fine laws and things are well for us. My one problem, Mr Chairman, is that having such fine laws in a developing country like Botswana we are expected to interpret them as best as we can, taking into account the fact that we are lay people, particularly as regards the constitution. / have always had the impression that you can carry this up to a certain point by way of understanding the electorates that you represent. I refer to all the concepts of mitigating circumstances, I remember reading in a South African newspaper about a young boy who shot his parents and in court, when he was asked to plead in mitigation, he said, "Your honour, in convicting me you must now take into account the fact that lam an orphan!" COMMENT; What in the case of a person who has been arrested on suspicion of murder. What do you do as legal advisors, when that man is arrested and detained, and after some time he is released. The constitution says that man will be detained for a reasonable time: how many days is a reasonable time, or how many months or how many years is a reasonable time? Secondly, I would like to know what would happen in the case of the police arresting and detaining a man suspected of murder and torturing him, taking advantage of the fact that it is in the rural areas and that person would not know how and where to present his case. The last question concerns the chiefs, because some of them say they are not employed. Some of them will tell you that they have never written a letter asking for a job. In that case, what do you do with a chief who is in a district, receiving government funds or salary, not doing anything - drinking beer from morning until late in the afternoon. Even while trying cases and finding a mnan guiltyhe lust does not take it seriously. What does government do to ensure that that man is employed as you have been saying? ANSWER: Mr Chairman perhaps I could deal with both the first two questions together. I think both arise from the same fact, mainly the young boy who left his blanket and returns after five years to get it. Mr Chairman, the problem there is an apportionment of the blame. You cannot blame the magistrate or the judge unless you can prove he showed malice, because he acted on the evidence before him. Normally you cannot blame the policemen because they investigate lots of crimes and they do their best to get the correct evidence. But there is a third person Mr Chairman, because the evidence come from somebody, somebody stands up on oath in the witness box and says "ke ene yo o mmolaileng" and that is the person to whom you can turn for your damages. That is the person against whom it is usually much easier to prove because it is a matter of public record that he stood up and said, "I saw him going into the bush with the head of a child" or whatever the statem3nt was. COMMENT: Is it government or the judiciary which should pay for this person? ANSWER: There are two answers to that question. First of all, there is a criminal liability for the offence of perjury, which is now proved by the facts. That man will now be guilty of having perjured himself in the most serious manner possible because he sent a man to the gallows. Secondly, the relatives and children of the deceased person would be entitled to sue him and say: it is as a result of your malice and your lies that we have lost our bread-winner and we require our damages. They would do that through the civil courts, not through the Government of Botswana. That is how it would work. I think that answers both questions. COMMENT: Would that man be tried for murder because he lied and caused the other person to die? ANSWER: If you could prove that he had the intention to kill when he did that, then probably he is guilty of at least conspiracy to murder because the foreknowledge of what he said resulted in somebody going to the gallows. He said it and of course he was believed. It would of course be a very difficult case to prove. He might say the police put a plastic bag over his mouth that is why he made a statement and that would create additional difficulties. You then have to decide whether the police are telling the truth or he himself is telling the truth. The next question gave the example of a man who pleaded that he was an orphan after killing both his parents, and said he should not get a stiff sentence. The real point of the question was that there are lots of legal niceties which appear to get in the way of justice. I think the answer to that one is that once you try to simplify the law, you allow too many people to interpret it in too many different ways. If you have a very simple statement of the law, then the same chiefs who were criticized in one of the questions might use that oversimplification for the purposes of nepotism or unfairness or other purposes. There has to be a set of rules which have to apply in detail. And I think that is the danger of oversimplifying. In some countries, it has been tried to oversimplify matters. I believe the President of Malawi has introduced a Customary Court with power of imposing death sentence and that is an example of terrible oversimplification. Imagine if we had that system here, where the customary court had the power of life and death. The answer concerning chiefs who act in an arbitrary manner is that all their decisions are first of all subject to review by the Customary Court Commissioner. So you can advise your constituents that if the chief is unfair, they do not have to go all the way through the courts. They can go straight to the Ministry of Local Government and Lands, the Customary Courts Commissioner will call for the record and it if is obviously nonsense, he has the power personally to overthrow it. If the record is not obviously nonsense but is arguable, the complainant still has the right to appeal. First to the Subordinate Court, then to the High Court and finally to the Court of Appeal and the final safeguard is this, that if the chief deliberately fails to write down the evidence, which sometimes happens, and the Court of Appeal then is bound by only the record of the case, there is also a review procedure where people come by way of affidavit and say: this record is wrong because here is witness A who said so and so and witness B who said so and so, they have given their affidavit. We are applying to set aside the proceedings on review, which is a different thing to appeal. The matter would then be heard properly with full evidence by another person. I think that explains the protection against some chiefs who may be unfair. CHAIRMAN: And about the chief who does not do his work, there is the district commissioner in every area who is the supervisor of the chiefs. In the case of a chief who has been installed at the request of the tribe asking the President to install him, the tribe can go back to the President through the Minister of Local Government and Lands, state that this chief does not seem to be a fit and proper person and request that he be removed.

RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN POLITICIANS AND PUBLIC OFFICERS by Prof K. C. Sharma, University of Botswana His Excellency the President of the Republic of Botswana and the President of the Botswana Democratic Party, Honourable Ministers, Members of Parliament, Councillors, Distinguished Members of the Botswana Democratic Party, Ladies and Gentlemen. The relationship between the politicians and public officers is basically a question of relationship between mechanisms for the determination of ends of state and means for their realisation. This relationship determines the way the public values are articulated, formulated, expressed, enforced and implemented. When we discuss the relationship between the politicians and public officers, we discuss the process of formulation and implementation of public policies. Within this broad and general framework, it may be advisable for us in this forum of a seminar organised by Botswana's Ruling Party - the Botswana Democratic Party, to relate our discussion to the context of Botswana. Development is one of the primary concerns of the Government of Botswana. The effectiveness of the government of Botswana as an instrument of development, will depend to a great extent on the role played by politicians and public officers in the working of various government organisations and political institutions at different levels. Politicians and public officers are the two important groups of people who make the government machinery work the way it does. Politicians operate in different capacities as Members of Cabinet, Ministers, Members of Parliament, Members of District Councils, Members of ruling party or Members of Opposition Parties. They are engaged in various activities at the national, district and village levels. The activities and interactions with public officers and members of the public have an important bearing on the working of government machinery. Public officers operate in different capacities - as Permanent Secretaries, Clerical Officers, Experts, Professional Officers or general Administrators of different ranks in different government Ministries, in District Administration, in various field agencies of government Ministries, in the District and Villages, in District Councils, Landboards, Tribal Administration, District Development Committees, Village Development Committees, etc. They run, control or guide the operations of various development projects and public enterprises. Politicians and Public Officers have to operate in partnership and need to develop a proper appreciation of their own role, responsibilities and relationship. Politicians basically have a leadership role and public officers are basically instruments in their hands for the realisation of objectives which they (the politicians) set on behalf of the people in consultation with public officers. The politicians as Ministers, Members of Parliament or Councillors are concerned with the ends within the given political, constitutional, legal framework and public officers are concerned with the means for the realisation of these ends through the exercise of legal-rational legitimate authority in their different capacities. The politicians are concerned with the questions of values and norms which have to be understood and adhered to by the public officers. Politicians as representatives of the people are concerned with the fundamental questions regarding the structure of society and the nature of political system. The public officers have to accept the political system, have to understand its requirements, and have to work within it and not against it. Whether the country should adopt communism or socialism or capitalism; Parliamentary or Presidential form of government; One-Party State or Multi-Party State - these questions fall within the jurisdiction of politicians who are expected to be the spokesmen of the people. The task of public officers is the make the prevalent political dystem work as well as is possible. The politicians who exercise legitimate political authority on behalf of the people define and interpret public interest; and their authority - as long as it has the mandate from the people - has to be accepted by the Public Servants. Within this broad framework of division of authority and responsibility between politicians and public servants, we could proceed further to say that the politicians make the public policies and the public officers execute these policies made by the politicians who exercise legitimate political authority. This division between the roles of politicians and public officers regarding public policy making and public policy execution. needs however to be qualified in the sense that although the politicians are primarily corcerned with policy making they have a very important role to play in the execution of public policies; similarly, although the public officers are primarily concerned with the execution of public policies, they have a very important role to play in their formulation. The role of public officers in public policy making becomes important due to their role as advisers to the politicians. In the vast and complex areas of operations of government, the politicians need adviced from public officers who posses information, technical competence and professional expertise. Politicians also need assistance from public officers who can express and give shape to their policies in the form of legal or technical format of bills, rules and procedures which subsequently require political approval. The politicians also need the assistance of public officers who can give effect to their mega-policies in the form of sub-policies to make them operational. The policies also have to be interpreted and explained and have to be formulated with due regard to their feasibility, implementability and costs. Public officers therefore come to play a significant role in the process of policy formulation in this way. Similarly, although the public officers are primarily concerned with the implementation of public policies as determined by the legitimate political authorities, the politicians have to ensure that their policies are implemented faithfully, effectively and efficiently. They have to, therefore, exercise some control and superintendence over public officers, They have to give direction and keep the public administration machinery responsible and responsive. As politicians are ultimately responsible and answerable to the public for the success or failure of their policies, they have to ensure that the public officers are on the right track and are working for the realisation of the objectives of government. The politicians have a role to play in the implementation of public policies in this way. The politicians operate therefore as "political masters" of public officers who have to operate in subordination. Although this kind of division of functions, authority and responsibility could be identified, it has to be appreciated that public administration machinery operates in a sensitive political environment where any matter, large or small, can become political although most of the routines of bureaucratic operations remain insulated from politics. As Professor Peter Self has put it, "political activity is like lightning, in that it can suddenly strike into one corner of the administrative system, but only rarely does so'. In the former British Colonies belonging to the Commonwealth of Nations which have adopted a political system of multi-party democracy like Botswana, the relationship between politicians and public officers is based on the principle of neutrality of the public service as followed in Britain. According to this principle of neutrality of public service, a public officer does not take part in active party politics. He cannot contest elections unless he resigns and he does not take part in election campaigns. He can vote but does not make publicity about his political convictions. Public officers, according to this principle of neutrality, serve the political party which wins the general elections and forms the government without being influenced by their own personal political convictions or preference for a particular political party. In Britain, when the Conservative Party is in power, the public servants give their loyalty to that political party and when the Labour Party comes in power, the same public service gives equal loyalty to the Labour Party. The winning political party works with the continuing permanent public service and there is no victimization. The tradition of neutrality of public service is so well established in Britain that there is a trust and confidence on both sides, the winning political party and the public servants who understand the system. Neutrality of the public service is an essential complement of the "merit system" according to which the appointments and promotions to various positions in the public service are governed by merit which is assessed through well-established legal-rational administrative mechanisms and not on the basis of political affiliation. This merit system establishes other advantages of permanence, continuity, stability, impartiality in the public service and develops professionalism. Lord Attlee in Britain considered neutrality of the public service to be "one of the strongest bulwarks of democracy" essential to the system of Parliamentary Democracy where the political complexion of the ruling party is subject to periodic if not frequent changes. The neutrality principle is also followed with the principle of impartiality and anonymity of the public service. It further follows the principle of political responsibility of the Minister according to which the Minister, above the public service hierarchy in his Ministry, takes the ultimate responsibility, credit or discredit for all the actions of public servants. Ministerial responsibility finally culminates in the collective responsibility of the Cabinet according to which the Cabinet is jointly responsible as one unit to the Parliament and to the people. According to the principle of collective responsibility of the Cabinet all Ministers in the Cabinet speak with one voice and have no disagreements in public. They all stand or fall together, swim or sink together. Every Ministry is headed by a Minister who is assisted by a team of civil servants arranged in a hierarchical order of superior - subordinate relationship, headed by a Permanent Secretary as is the case in Botswana. The responsibilities and relationships between Ministers and Permanent Secretaries of ministries have been organised in Botswana on the British model. The Ministers handle a large number of responsibilities and perform different functions. They make policies - sometimes as a part of the Cabinet with other colleagues, sometimes independently or in consultation with the head of government within the broad framework of mandate given by the Cabinet. They are responsible and answerable for their policies to the Cabinet, to the President, to the Party and to the Parliament. In formulation of policies they consult and are advised by public officers, cabinet and party colleagues. The task of Ministers, as outlined earlier, is not confined only to policy making. They exercise supervision over the execution of public policies by public officers; they control the public administration machinery and keep it responsible and responsive; they take the responsibility on behalf of the public officers in their ministries and become answerable to the Parliament and the people; they represent the party; they act as a link and a two-way channel of communication between the government and the people; they give leadership in instructing, informing, educating people, they follow as well as lead and influence public opinion. The senior public officers working under the Ministers, particularly the Permanent Secretaries and their assistants, advise their ministers and execute the policies. The public officers are expected to give frank, objective, detailed advice to the ministers with pros and cons of different possible alternatives with an examination of technical aspects, feasibility, economic, social and even political costs of various policy alternatives. It is the responsibility and privilege of the ministers to accept or reject the advice given by the public officers. Once the policies have been made and decisions have been taken by the ministers, the public officers have to execute and implement the policies and decisions as faithfully, loyally and efficiently as possible, even if the policies made and decisions taken are contrary to the advice given, even if these are contrary to their own personal political convictions.

Although the Ministers and Permanent Secretaries have this broad division of responsibilities, their operations have some common elements. Both have to be administrators. Both are engaged in many political activities different from party politics. Both need ability to measure correctly the limits of the possible. The Minister knows about political acceptability being attuned to the party and other pressures generated within the political process. The Permanent Secretaries measure the administrative capability, probable reactions of departmental clients or pressure groups. Both need proper appreciation of each other's roles and need to develop right attitudes towards each other, Public officers sometimes fail to appreciate that the Ministers are administrators as'well. Public officers tend to endure and accommodate their Ministers rather than to understand them and their enormously important functions. Public officers sometimes fail to appreciate that the Ministers are publicly responsible for governmental actions and they have to be elected periodically. The public officers have heavy responsibilities but they do not have to be elected. The public officers sometimes find it difficult to understand the Ministers who are thinking about social and institutional forces the public officers has not really experienced. The public officers sometimes wrongly assume that their Ministers should know what they know. This is a problem with subordinates generally, They fail to appreciate the value of their superiors' broader exposure to society, their acquaintance with other functions and other social drives than those to which the subordinates' energies are addressed. Public officers have to appreciate that a Minister is not a superior civil servant and is likely to approach problems in a different way. He is recruited, trained and promoted to office through different channels. A senior public officer has to stimulate, develop, guide, rely upon, uphold, criticise and umpire differences among his subordinates. The politician has to do all this and much more. What is complicated for a public officer is enormously more complicated for the politicians, who must take account of everybody's concern - outside bureaucracy as well as inside. The government does not exist for the public officer. The public officer exists for the sake of the government, and the government exists for the sake of the people. The politician is the special, formal embodiment of popular dedication. While the actions of public officers tend to be somewhat specialised and their dealings with citizens are limited in number and scope, politicians in contrast are held responsible to all citizens for everything the government does, As someone has observed, "politicians protect civil servants from full impact of politics. The more democratic a government is, the more thoroughly political it is. In a democracy, more selfish interests, more ideas, more ideologies and ideas of more people must be more constantly taken into account than in a government not systematically accountable to a whole people. The weighing of unlike, inconsistent, competitive, unrelated and complementary concerns is the continuing business of a democratic government. It is political business. The great weight of it is borne by politicians". A Minister has to give a purposeful and sympathetic leadership to the public officers. He has to be clear in his directions as to what needs to be accomplished. He has to take decisions. He has to take responsibility. He has to inspire confidence in the public Qfficers. He should not use public officers as scapegoats for his failures or inadequacies. He has to defend and support public officers where such defence and support is necessary. Public officers expect support from Ministers for their actions. Otherwise they may be reluctant to take responsibility. This however does not mean that the Minister has to be partial to the public officer. A Minister has to try to understand the work, ways and attitudes of public officers. Ministers are sometimes critical of and impatient with the public officers who find it difficult to violate the established rules and procedures which they have to uphold as a part of legality, rationality, uniformity, objectivity and consistency. In any case, both have to treat each other with respect, dignity and understanding. What Herbert Morrison said in the British context could well be said about Botswana: "The relationship between the Minister and the Civil Servants should be that of colleagues working together in a team, cooperative partners seeking to advance the public interest and the efficiency df the Department." The Minister should not be an isolated autocrat, giving orders without hearing or considering arguments for alternative courses nor, on the other hand, should the civil servants be able to treat him as a mere cipher. The partnership sould be alive and virile, rival ideas and opinions should be fairly considered, and the relationship of all should be one of mutual respect on the understanding, of course, that the Minister's decision is final ." While we explain and uphold the British model of public service, neutrality in the context of Botswana, and underline the significance of the Weberian model of legal bureaucratic behaviour, it will not be inappropriate to emphasize that the concept of neutrality of public service should not be allowed to result in a passive or disinterested public service. It must be realised that in order to make the public service an effective instrument of rapid socio-economic development, it must be made to develop and display commitment to the development of the country and to the objectives of state which have been approved by the Parliament. National development planning, an exercise of vital importance for a developing country like Botswana, has added a new dimension to the relationship between politicians and public officers. Development planning which requires rational allocation of scarce resources for maximum social advantage, calls for professional expertise of different kinds at different levels, but over and above that, commitment, interest, support and leadership of politicians, not only at the top - in the Ministries, Districts and Villages. Development planning is not just an economic exercise, it is basically a political activity. As politics is concerned with "who gets what, when and how" development planning is also concerned with precisely the same questions. Politics of development planning determines its economics. Planning mechanisms and organisations for national development planning therefore have to be so devised that efforts of public officers, experts and politicians are harmonised into collaborative and participatory structures. The role of politicians in the process of development planning has to be recognised due to the contributions they alone can make. Association of politicians in planning could have a number of advantages. Politicians can bring realism into planning exercise. When development plans are formulated with the participation. of politicians they are likely to have greater degree of acceptability by the people and the plans are likely to be closer to the felt needs and priorities of the people. Planning machinery with which politicians are associated is likely to have greater political autho rity and higher status which could help the planning machinery to be taken seriously by various government organisations. Inevitable political implications of economic development could be better handled by the politicians if they are involved in the formulation of plans. A satisfactory two-way communication between the people and the planners could be facilitated when politicians are a part of planning machinery. This however does not mean that the exercise of development planning could be left entirelyto the politicians. Far from it, the contribution of experts, economists, sociologists has also to be obtained but in a way that they operate with constant contact with the politicians. Different kinds of public officers have to give their contribution in the process of development planning but it has to be recognised that planning exercise cannot be left entirely to the economists. The public service machinery remains important particularly for the realistic appraisal of administrative capabilities. As politics is fundamental to development planning, administration is vital. Administrative and organisational strengths or deficiencies could determine the success or failure of development plans to a significant extent. As the United Nations publications based on the research of their personnel have pointed out repeatedly: "One usual defect in development planning is a tendency to overlook the administrative element. Many development plans m ake no or inadequate provision for administrative development. They outline economic and social targets but do not contain any guidance on problems concerning the administrative machinery necessary to carry them out." This imbalance called "The administrative gap" or "The implementation gap" is one of the most serious obstacles to national development. The practice of blaming the public officers for the failures in plan implementation, or the statement often made to the effect that the plan was good but implementation was bad, are misleading. A plan cannot be good if it cannot be implemented or if it is not implementable or if it does not contain a plan for developing administrative capacity essential to its implementation or if it does not take into account the realities of the political system, society, culture and administrative machinery. In the early stages of development planning, programmes and projects were considered only in terms of technical and economic feasibility, now increasing attention is being given to administrative feasibility. Developing administrative capabilities therefore is a major pre-requisite for the success of development plans. The various efforts that are needed for strengthening public administration machinery call for political support, political leadership, political commitment and appropriate allocation of resources for the task. The public bureaucracy, in spite of its strengths and usefulness as a factor in stability, continuity and permanence, display an element of conservatism which has a tendency to inhibit innovation and resist change. The necessary bureaucratic reforms therefore may have to be organised with initiative and leadership at the political level. There is an urgent need to strengthen development orientation and appropriate equipment of personnel with increased investment in education for public administration and training of personnel at different levels. This has to be organised along with some structural and procedural changes in the working of administrative machinery to facilitate decentralisation and increased people's participation in decision making mechanisms. Public participation and public accountability are becoming increasingly difficult areas with the fast growth in the functions of government and consequent increase in the growth of bureaucratic organisations. In order that public bureaucracy remains responsible and responsive to the people, representative political institutions, particularly Parliament and the ruling party have to be strong enough to ensure that public officers continue to play an instrumental role for the ends of state and do not become masters. The knowledge, expertise, experience of public service bureaucracy strengthen its powerful position which could be kept under control partly by divising appropriate structural arrangements in which superintendence of the representatives of the public is clearly established and enforced, but largely by increasing the strength of the ruling party. In order that it can be an effective instrument of control over public service bureaucracy, on behalf of the public, in order that democracy does not degenerate into rule by uncontrollable public officers, the ruling party has to be concerned with devising means which could strengthen its organisation, performance and competence of its active members. Democtacy requires people's participation in policy making, planning and decision making and therefore decentralisation of political and bureaucratic authority horizontally and vertically becomes an essential requirement of democratic development. Appropriate structures and mechanisms have to be devised to decentralise the process of development planning and development administration. Concentration of functions, power and authority in one office for a few people will mean negation of democracy. It could also make a task of development planning unrealistic and development administration difficult. It has to be therefore appreciated that strong planning machineries for formulation and implementation have to be developed in the Ministries: Parastatals, District Administration, District Councils, Field Agencies of various Ministries and further down in the villages. Streamlined procedures for coordination and two- way communication have to be developed and meaningful people's participation has to be sought. Decentralisation is a means of overcoming severe limitations of centralised planning. It allows officials to disaggregate and tailor development plans and programmes to the needs of hetero-geneous regions and groups within the country. It increases sensitivity to local problems, needs, priorities. It allows greater political and administrative penetration into rural areas. It institutionalises people's participation. It reduces the domination of national elites. It is easy to make a case for decentralisation but it is not so easy to realise the desired objectives in this direction and establish effective decentralisation. Decentralisation in order to be a reality requires first of all strong commitment on the part of national political and bureaucratic leadership, secondly strong political leadership at the local level, and thirdly development administrative capabilities on the part of political and bureaucratic organisations operating at the district and local levels. Efforts for decentralisation have been somewhat ineffective in the developing countries for a variety of reasons. Political commitment to' decentralisation has been weak in spite of pronouncements. Political leadership at the local level remains weak. The political and administrative organisations operating at the district and village levels like District Councils, District Development Committees, Village Development Committees .display qualitative personnel deficiencies, are handicapped by inadequate resources, and possess limited administrative capabilities. The relationship between politicians and public officers at the district level and below requires better understanding, greater awareness of each other's contributions and teamwork. District level planning remains largely a bureaucratic exercise undertaken by public officers, and participation of local people in development planning remains confined mainly to obtaining their compliance for policies determined by the central government ministries or by public officers operating on their behalf. Important organisations like District Development Committees in Botswana could be enriched by the participation of local level politicians, participating with a view to develop communication linkages, reciprocal interaction and cooperative activity. It could be particularly useful to develop a right kind of temperament on the part of public officials as well as local politicians to make them understand that development i§ a joint effort and team work among politioians and public officers.

COMMENTS & ANSWERS Relationship between Politicians and Public Officers COMMENT- Thank you Mr Chairman. Listening to what Professor Sharma has just been saying, f would like to come closer to home and maybe divide our own government into a political section and the administration section. In my own realisation, / found that sometimes there are problems between the two and the main problem has been communication, the result of which has been slow administration, wrong implementation of policies or none at all. Sometimes you find that in the face of the public, this gives the impression that the ruling party has failed or is inefficient. Who has to enforce the implementation within our own party? The second question is in the party, up to what level of officials have to question the implementation by the administrative section of the Government. For instance, we talked about the Financial. Assistance Policy, things are already going wrong, who has to make sure that things are going right? ANSWER: I hold the view that it is the responsibility of the politicians in charge to ensure that the policies are implemented as desired. The politicians have to share the blame if policies are not implemented properly. If the public service machinery is not being mobilised properly, if there is a problem of communication, if there is a problem of understanding, or if the people are not performing their duties properly,then the leadership has to come from those in political authority to give direction and to ensure that the policies are being implemented in the way they want. If this is not happening, the blame has to be taken bythe politicians. COMMENT. Mr Chairman, / think we listened to a very interesting lecture or address. / personally look upon Professor Sharma's address as providing a blueprint for a reform of our own system of government. I think it has to be admitted without hesitation that we are a young government that has inherited a system from our former colonial masters. You will all reafise that from the beginning the Permanent Secretaries were all the district officers who were in charge of the internal government, andt obviously anything that was done was more or less influenced by their own preferences and the tendency to jealously guard against their own established attitudes. / think this is somethng that we should widely resolve to make available to government, although it is a paper delivered to our seminar; we are a government party and I don 't think we should be ashamed to make it available so that it can provide a basis whereby early revolutionisation or reform of our current administrative systems, adjustments of attitudes can take place. / don't have any questions myself. I only wish to acknowledge how / regard this paper as being very important. ANSWER: I suppose this was merely a comment. I agree with the observations made from the floor. There is a need for a proper appreciation of the roles on both sides. There is no need on the part of the public officers to have appreciation of the roles and contributions of the politicians. On the other hand there is need on the part of the politicians to appreciate the roles and contributions of the civil servants. There is a tenden- cy on the part of the civil servants to look down upon the politicians and there is also a tendency on the part of the politicians to look down upon the civil servants. Politicians took at the civil servants as bureaucrats who do not move unless they are made to do so and the public servants tend to think that the work would be better off if the politicians were not around. There is therefore a need for a better understanding on the part of both the administrators and the politicians. There is need for confidence on both sides. Similarly, there is need for trust on both sides. I completely agree with the observations, and I want to further underline that there is need for confidence on both sides, need for appreciation on both sides, the need for trust on both sides. COMMENT: Mr Chairman, my first question is, are we going to be given a copy of this paper? The second one is a comment, that is, / appreciate and support the view that there should be mutual trust between the politicians and the civil servants and between the politicians themselves of different ranks. / say this, Mr Chairman, because as far as I am concerned, the upper ranks fear the lower ranks, sometimes the opposite. We need mutual understanding. / can just quote an example of the case where somebody at the top begins to fear somebody at the bottom. The late President for example, wanted to establish a working relationship with the opposition whereby he could, for very important issues, take them into his confidence; but what happened is that some of them would go out and say he called us, he wanted us to join his party, and tell all sorts of funny stories. l am quoting this because sometimes these things are created when somebody you confide in lets you down, so that later on you would be hesitant to confide in this person. That is why / hold the view that we must cultivate this relationship. COMMENT: Thank you Mr Chairman, I have to thank Professor Sharma because it helps to have economists who can help to analyse our political institutions from two objectives. I would like Professor Sharma to comment on this point. I agree that there should be mutual trust between the politicians and the public officers. There is a tendency for the public servants to feel superior to the politicians, a tendency to look down on them and think they are the government so to speak, in line with the sort of comment you made that they sometimes feel they can run the government better. One of the problems with our administration, for instance, is that there is a misconception relating to the acts and the regulations of the public service. The public administration feel that it has excluded the politicians from controlling and giving directions within various ministerial sections of government. Consequently the administrators feel that the politicians should not interfere, and this is a feeling that has persisted. Then the misconception by the political superiors meaning the ministers for instance, also believing that there ought to be no interference even of control and supervision by the politicians, as otherwise the service can be corrupt. I think this is one of the weaknesses that we have. But it is symptomatic of a situation where we feel we are not mature enough as a country to dtake political responsibility and the administrative responsibility. The other weakness which / find, also as a result of the superiority, that the public administration accords itself, is the fact that the politicians, especially the back benchers, have no contact - there is a lack of trust, by either the administration or by the political superiors, the Cabinet Ministers and so on. Earlier we talked about the accessibility of certain information to politicians meaning back benchers; as a result the back benchers themselves have no access to this information that is quite important to them. In other countries, the politicians do have access to certain information by government and therefore they can assist, they do have researchers. Parliament is in session at the moment vet back benchers have to look after themselves, they are without any service whatsoever. I think the administration also realises the ignorance in the lack of information the back benchers are faced with. We have a situation, for instance, where even when a Minister visits your constituency, the speech is prepared and the minister is given the information of what is the problem of that particular area or constituency. The back benchers for the area may not have been contacted. Even the local politicians, like the Councillors, would not know which politician is coming and what he wants. In other words, there is no communication between the political superiors and the local Member of Parliament or Councillor, even the administrators themselves, However far away from the constituency, say in Gaborone, they would not even ask the opinion of the Member of Parliament for the purpose of advising even the Minister himself. Hence the problems that you raise about decentralisation when in fact there is none, the consultative machinery merely ends between the public officers, either in the central government or in the local district. This is the point made earlier, that perhaps when Members of Parliament are talking to the back benchers when we are in Parliament, they tend to be too critical, there is no mutual connection between the two. Consequently they ask about things being done by government which we do not even know about. My comment about this relationship, when we talk of political masters, is whether you mean political masters merely just on policy matters, or whether you mean political direction and control and supervision by a Minister of a department. Can you give your views as to where this direction and supervision end. I am sure some of our political superiors may feel that this point of contact is with the Permanent Secretary and there is no contact at all with the administrative officer, clerks or people like that where they can have a say when they performed inadequately or inefficiently. Thank you sir. ANSWER: The speaker has raised many interesting points in his observations, most of whrch have also been mentioned earlier-the problem of trust, communication and so on. Communication is a big problem in administration at all levels, within a group of politicians, a group of public bureaucracy, between the central government and the districts and villages and so on. We have to be more and more conscious of the need for increased communication through different means. This is a very important point raised. There is need for communication within the party and Members of Parliament themselves. The point about the civil servants feeling superior sometimes is something that needs to be seen in the historical context to a certain extent. The civil service as an organisation has been there much longer and has more experience compared to many Ministers or Members of Parliament who now have to play the role of exercising control and direction over the civil service bureaucracy. During the colonial period the civil service itself performed the political role that is being performed by the political institutions today. They were the ones who made the policies and were their own masters in many ways. That tradition of authority of the civil service bureaucracy has now to be brought under the control of the representatives of the people. This is a process which takes time. What is needed is more information, morevigilance, more political education on the side of the politicians. COMMENT: Thank you Mr Chairman. I would like to comment on the decentralisation of communications. We have a problem here, as the previous speakers have already said: the politicians are divorced from the people. The politicians are supposed to be serving the people, this is a problem right at the grass roots. It is unfortunate because ultimately it is the politicians who suffer. Members of Parliament who are back benchers and even belong to the ruling party do not have enough information concerning the affairs of government operations and so on. When people have pro- blems, they see their local Members of Parliament or Councillors in .their areas and you find that they, the Members of Parliament and Councillors, are ignorant of their problems, not because they are not educated but because the information is hidden from them. At the same time, the administration is taking advantage of the person who is suffering and by the time you get to the top it is too late. ANSWER: Yes, there is a need for structural changes to facilitate full participation from politicians. I fully agree with the observation which has been made, that if the back benchers and some politicians are not making any good contribution, it may not necessarily be because they are not able to. Maybe we have not actually explored various mechanisms and have not organised the system well enough so that they can make a contribution according to their potential. There is a need to devise machineries. This is what I meant when I talked about communication mechanisms and the structural changes at the district level. We need decentralisation not only in terms of bureaucratic decentralisation but decentralisation of a kind rn which politicians can be made to play a role. COMMENT: Mr Chairman, / thank you for giving me the floor. There have been comments about the problem of relations between Members of Parliament, Councillors and the administrative authority. i.e. government with. all its. specifications. Even to the extent of some people actually implying that there is a need for access to information in government people could even be given the files to look through. / hope this is not the intention because / cannot imagine any administration or any organisation for that matter making its information accessible to that extent, because normally you supply such information as it is sought without undermining confidentiality which is a very basis of any administration. I am a Member of Parliament myself, also a Minister, but / personally, in my capacity as a Member of Parliament, feel that there should be no problem of communication contact, seeking and finding information in whatever area you have to make contact with. I have presently a bulky file in my own office here, full of correspondence with, councils or whatever authority seeking informatior from my constituepts. It may be on the subject of water, inadequacy of social. services which are required, there is nobody who is excluded from doing that. Go and write back to the lowest rank of Local Government, so that if you do not get satisfaction, you should know what other steps to take until you make a very strong complaint, even amounting to a protest that there is no response when you communicate with authorities at various levels, on matters that affect your constituents. / personally would think that whilst there could well be this problem of bureaucracy that has been mentioned, we too should not be shy to impress upon the authorities that which we think we are entitled to know, so that we get the necessary information. When you have to go to the Ministry to talk to the Minister, you should not hesitate. / understand that sometimes people are returned somewhere way down. I do not know why, because we, as Members of Parliament, as Councillors, understand our rights. Any person who has the right, if he says I would like to talk to the Minister, he should be allowed to do that. /personally do not see any problem here which would make us even suggest that we should have further access. / would certainly caution against this because it might really upset the entire running of our administration. COMMENT: Thank you Mr Chairman. I am sure nobody in this room can deny that the lecture given by Professor Sharma was quite useful and people would do well by keeping it next to their desks and keep on referring to it. Part of what / intended to say has been said already and concerns the extent to which information can be given to outsiders, that is people outside the office, and the level at which such information should be derived. I am sorry if that word is causing so much sensation, but / mean people who are outside the office, simply because certain people do not know how to use some words. I was saying I am worried about the extent to which certain information can be released and the level. I am saying the level because if any Member of Parliament enters the Parliament and bumps into a messenger, he could give information which is likely to be disruptive. / am saying this because it was suggested earlier to approach an executive officer or somebody below the Permanent Secretary, Under Secretary or somebody else. There are officers who may not be as sensitive as the situation may call for. In answering some of the comments, Professor Sharma said we should blame the politicians if the implementation is not very good. Sometimes, in blaming the politicians, we do not seem to take sensitivity into account. People will go as far as saying things which are disruptive to themselves as a party and announce them to the extent of even taking rotten seeds from somewhere and lay them in Parliament. People do not seem to be sensitive to the fact that when you do such a thing, you are yourself creating danger in your own party, that your party is in fact very inefficient. Mr Chairman, somewhere Professor Sharma said that at local levels politicians can be used. Here again one has to be a bit sensitive because when we say politicians, we do not necessarily mean members of the ruling party. Members of these disruptive parties are politicians who might just disrupt progress rather than contribute. That is why I say participation of politicians at local level should make sure that the type of people we use are the people whose aim is progress - not blocking it. I know that some of them contribute properly but there are others, especially in the local areas; in fact we have experienced that some of the Members of Paliament who feel they have to get the councils, they have to win, sometimes even try to check on the chairmanship of the council. We do not know just how to involve some of the people. Mr Chairman, I thought I should make this short contribution and if Professor Sharma feels there is something which calls for reply, he may comment. Thank you, Sir. COMMENT: Mr Chairman, sir, when Professor Sharma made the remark that Ministers are expected to have one voice, there was a murmur - I suspect from the Ministers themselves because they know that usually or sometimes something happens. Mr Chairman, i was going to make a remark that perhaps instead of using the word communication let me use the word consultation. It has happened more than once that a policy has been violated. You expect a policy to be implemented dealing with one Ministry and when it gets to us, the lowest ranks, there is confusion. Let us say for example, the Ministry of Agriculture wants something to be carried out or a policy implemented without consulting other Ministries, you find that when the lowest rank is just about to take action, you see letters pouring in from different Ministries, saying please do not do that because this and this will happen. So consultation is very important. COMMENT: Mr Chairman, I often hear some of our critics, not necessarily back benchers, say we have good policies but our problem is implementation. If I do not misquote you, what do they mean by saying we have good plans. I though I heard you say any good plan should be easily implemented. I wonder about the situation we are in here in Botswana, where we have expatriate planners who sometimes bring up very good ideas which may be introduced in our policies yet they do not see through the policies which have been implemented and they leave before we get the result of their plans. I think this is one of the things which makes it very difficult for us to achieve our goals and our aspirations as far as I am concerned. The other thing Mr Chairman that I would like to know concerns the system that we have in this country which is partly borrowed from the British system of the multi-party system, allowing civil servants to be neutral. Could we really say we have neutrality in the whole system, because my experience is that some of the aims or projects are frustrated by some people who feel that the government is wrong and who really do harm to government policy. ANSWER: Thank you Mr Chairman. First of all on this question of making the files and government papers available to the outsiders, I do agree with the view expressed here that it is very difficult for government machinery to operate in a way that the files and papers of the government ministries can be made available to outsiders. What is important is communication and information to the Members of Parliament and members of the public for which other means can be devised. On the question of use of politicians-at the local level, the view was expressed that if the politicians are made members of the organisation like District Development Committees, some of them sometimes might disrupt the working of these organisations. I do not agree with this view. The politicians are supposed to be representatives of the people. Not every politician will be able to go into those organisations. A politician who would be able to go into those organisations will be either a Member of Parliament, a Councillor or somebody who has been elected by the people. If it is decided that a Council Ior or a Member of Parliament should be a member of a committee, even if he is a member of the opposition or if he is considered disruptive by some other politicians, he should have the right to be there as long as he represents the people. He goes there as a representative of the people and if he is disruptive, the people will bring him out. I do hold the view that there is a need to make use of the politicians at local levels in various institutions and organisations which are involved in policy making. On the question of Ministers speaking with one voice, that is supposed to be the principle on which a government should be based. I mentioned that in the British context the Cabinet operates on the principle of collective responsibility and it is said that they stand or fall together, they sink or swim together. It has been said that it does not matter what they say as long as they say the same thing. This is something which is needed for the Ministers to cooperate as one team otherwise it can make the work of government difficult. On the question of policies which are not being implemented, it may not always be fair to make a remark that the plan was good, but the implementation was bad. A good plan or a good policy should normally take into account the implementability in terms of the Ministries' capabilities or financial, political, cultural or sociological constraints. If these are not taken into account adequately, the implementation machinery may sometimes be wrongly blamed. On the question of reliance on expatriates, (not only expatriates, but even local experts) there is the difficulty that sometimes political, social, economic, historical realities are not adequately taken into account by them. Experts and expatriates are needed, but when the policies are formulated, the need for consultative and participative machinery must be realised. Sometimes the policies are not properly formulated because of exclusive reliance on the expatriates or experts, and this has to be kept under control. On the neutrality of the civil servants I would like to say that if there is a civil servant or a public officer who does not have faith in the policies and programmes of the government of the day then he should resign from the civil service. As long as the public officer is part of the public service, he has to be loyal to the government led by the party that has won the elections and has formed the government. The ruling party has the right to demand obedience and loyalty from the public service machinery. The public servants may have their own personail political convictions, they may like or may not like a particular political partyand its ideologies, but as long as they are a part of the public service they must ensure that their own political convictions do not affect their work.

COMMENT Mr Chairman, I thank you for calling me, part of my question has already been asked and answered. But there is one little point I would like to know from Professor Sharma: this freedom which is enjoyed by pubic servants and which is somewhat biased must be got rid of. But supposing the public servant does not feel like resigning and keeps on messinhthings up, what do you do? COMMENT: Thankyou Mr Chairm.an. First of all I want to put the record straight. There was a remark at the bark, tt some Members of Parliament do not know the procedure, therefore would jUst bomp into messengers. I think this is an unfortunate attitude, because looking at Botswana's Parliament, almost three quarters of the Members were either teachers or civil servants, in either way they were involved in t administration. It does not mean Ministers are the only people who know administration, that is a wrong attitude. -This is exactly what we are talking about now. I think we should try to sort out this kind of attitude and meetings such as these will greatly contribute. The other thing is that this public service of ours is modelled on the British style and according to my observation, in this system, Permanent Secretaries seem to be running the show in the Ministries more than the Ministers. I would like Professor Sharma's observations on that. Not all Ministers here can tell me that they are In charge of their Ministries. There are a few who are but not many, and I think those Ministers should try, Mr Chairman, because they have the responsibility of the electorate, they have the responsibility of the public, so they should try to make sure the policies of their party are implemented fully. Because that was the ticket that brought them to Parliament, that is the ticket that made them Ministers. They can 't just come and sit around on a swivel chair with civil servants twisting them on that swivel chair, then they shift the emphasis. I know some of them are working on instructions only,. The other thing Mr Chairman, is that many people have said that there is lack of contact among the Front Bench, Parliamentarians, Councillors and other party members at local level. The difference is so big and affects so much that Members of Parliament are denied a lot of ihformation. They are almost ignorant. Mostly when they go to Parliament Meetings they go there unequipped with the information necessary to help them to debate Ossues concerning government policy and so on. This is why some bills are amended several times because the Members of Parliament supposed to debate these bills were not ready with first hand information, like the Sales Tax. The other thing Mr Chairman, is that the Parliamentarians are denied information by the public servants. Where they get the instructions from I do not know, but if you realise the leakage of vital information that is taking place in the public service in this country, it is alarming. If something happens today, somebody in Maun knows it the following day. (Answer not recorded)

POLITICAL PARTIES IN BOTSWANAAND THEIR ROLE IN DEMOCRACY By Mr R. Nengwekhulu, Lecturer, Universityof Botswana The Definition of Political Parties It is perhaps important that we should begin by defining what political parties are before we attempt any assessment and evaluation of their role in society. Political parties are organizations or groups of people which bring together people with common class interests. In other words, they are organizations which bring together people with common ideological interests. They therefore exist in order to promote and defend the class interests of the members they represent. Hence the desire and determination to acquire and retain political power for it is through the acquisition and retention of political power, as manifested in the acquisition of state apparatuses, that they are able to concretize and actualize these interests. It is in fact this desire and determination to acquire or attain the control of the state apparatuses that distinguishes political parties from other groups in a society although this distinction sometimes become blurred. Fundamental therefore in differentiating political parties from say trade unions, employer's Federations, etc. is this commitment not only to attain the control of the state instruments of power but also to keep them. Thus it is inevitable that in the pursuit of their aims and objectives, political parties want to prevail over other political parties in a society. In other words, they want to maintain a position of political dominance. Competition among political parties is therefore a reflection of the power struggle and this power struggle in turn is a reflection of the class conflicts of their members. Thus competition among parties is directed towards control, allocation and appropriation of the material wealth of the society. To understand the role of political parties, it is essential, therefore, to understand their character and the socio-economic and ideological conditions which produce them. It is these material conditions which also define and shape their role in the society, the methods and strategies they employ in order to achieve and realize their material interests. It is within this brief definition of political parties that we will attempt to define and isolate the role of political parties in Botswana. But perhaps even before we attempt an assessment of political parties in Botswana, we should briefly define and isolate the functions of political parties in society in general. The following functions are generally accepted as the main functions all political parties must perform if they have to properly represent and articulate the interests of their members. 1. One of the main functions, and perhaps the most important one, is to capture or retain political power. In other words, political parties perform the function of capturing or retaining political power on behalf of their members. This is indeed their most important function because it is only the successful performance of this function which enables a partyto concretize the material and ideological interests it was formed to realize. Thus the success or failure in the performance of this function determines the political viability and lifespan of a political party. Thus the action programmes of a political party must include strategies to capture or retain political power in the Society i.e., the capture of the state and its organs. 2. Another function which political parties are supposed to perform in society is that of serving as a link between government and their members. In other words, they are seen as channels through which their members communicate their aspirations, dreams, hopes and frustrations, etc. to the government of the day. And in order to perform this function adequately, parties must keep in constant touch with their members. 3. Parties also perform the function of simplifying complex social economic and political issues for their members so that they become easily grasped by the general membership. The importance of this function cannot be emphasized enough especially in an area in which government operations have become so complex as to confuse even experts in this field. 4. The other function is that of serving as breeding ground and nursery school for the leadership, not only of political parties but also of society as a whole. They can achieve this by organizing leadership seminars, etc. for their members. 5. Finally, political parties also perform the function of the mobilization of their members as well as society as a whole. By mobilization is meant the process whereby people are organized and galvanized into action in order to make them available for socio-economic and political change or the maintenance of the status quo. Thus mobilization can be for reactionary or progressive purposes. But more importantly, mobilization is the activation or infusion of the membership or "masses" with social and political awareness or consciousness necessary to make them aware or conscious of the socio-economic and political realities which confront them. Political mobilization therefore focuses on the political organizational and ideological work necessary in order to ignite political consciousness into political strength and socio-economic reality. In the so-called Third World countries, political mobilization means the organization and galvanization of the "masses" for development which must lead to democracy, social justice, the elimination of economic exploitation and political domination. In other words, political mobilization must entail the enlargement and enrichment of people's lives, It must be a process through which people begin to see clearly the contradictions between their own aspirations and the existing structural and institutional arrangements of the society in which they live. It is also possible, however, and this has indeed happened and will continue to happen, that mobilization may and does occur also for the legitimization and reinforcement of illegal and reactionary regimes i.e. regimes whose policies are for the intimidation and persecution of its people. But we are concerned here with mobilization for the creation, maintenance and reproduction of a democratic society in which the desire and aim is to eliminate all forms of injustices. We are therefore concerned with political mobilization which is directed towards not only organizing people but also educating them about their problems, structural and institutional problems they encounter as well as helping them sharpen their understanding of the tools necessary to solve these problems. Political mobilization by political parties must therefore lead to active and increased participation in the decision- making processes of the society. Political mobilization can be achieved through seminars etc. In this sense, political mobilization is much more than mobilization for elections. Hence we consider political mobilization to be the most important function of society. The above-mentioned functions are what one can consider the main functions of m-political parties in society and it is the performance of these functions which define the role of political parties in the society. It is the performance of these functions which will help to create favourable and conducive conditions for the birth, growth, and development of democracy in society, for by performing these functions, political parties help the people sharpen and heighten their understanding and appreciation of the socio-economic and political problems that confront them daily. In short, performance of these functions helps to make people decision-makers of their own destinies rather than mere recipients of decisions by others. The notion of "government by the people and for the people" will then make sense. In most cases, however, political parties perform these functions during party or general elections i.e. elections into national offices or party offices. The masses are therefore mobilized not with the view to improve and sharpen their understanding of the structures and institutions, contradictions and inequalities existing in the society but rather for the perpetuation and reproduction of the status quo. Political parties cease to be organizations founded to promote the interests of the masses and instead become instruments and vehicles for the promotion, protection and reproduction of the interests of a small leadership minority bent on maintaining its stranglehold on the party. The result is that the party becomes an impersonal oligarchy, impervious to the demands, interests and aspirations of the people it represents. Conformity and obedience to the "party line" become the iron law of the party. Contradictions, normal and healthy within the party, are normally viewed negatively as if the party is a monolithic structure with monolithic interests. And this tendency by party leaders to see political parties as instruments for the advancement of their own interests has normally led to a systematic depoliticization and deradicalization of the masses in order to prevent them from becoming threats to the interests of the party leadership, for depoliticization of the masses leads to the reduction of effective and meaningful participation of the masses in the decision-making processes of the party and other national institutions. It is for this reason that most parties have no programmes designed to eliminate illiteracy and ignorance among the masses. Very few parties conduct leadership training seminars and other forms of political education that will lead to the qualitative improvement in the political knowledge of the masses. It is therefore essential that the general party membership should be politically educated so that it can check and prevent these negative tendencies emerging and prevent parties from becoming instruments of domination and become vehicles for the birth and mushrooming of democracy. This is particularly so in the developing countries, where illiteracy and ignorance regarding the workings of the western form of political system still abound. The Role of Political Parties in Botswana From the above general analysis of the functions of political parties in society, it is clear that in Botswana, political parties should and must exist to advance and protect the interests of their members and of the society as a whole. In this respect they must therefore actively and effectively serve as links between government and their members, articulate and aggregate their members, serve as training grounds for the leadership of the society and more importantly, they must serve as political and social education centres for the ordinary people so that their social and political awareness is heightened and sharpened. For it is only people with a high level of political consciousness who actively participate in the shaping of the national destiny of their society. And it is with this active and meaningful participation by the masses, not only as voters, but also as leaders, that society is said to be democratic. This is particularly so in Botswana in which the majority of the people are illiterate and unfamiliar with the Westminster system of government dominant in Botswana. Thus, political education is increased. It is within this context that one can make the following observations regarding political parties in Botswana.

1. One of the observations which can be made is the abqence of regular political socialization and education seminars for the masses in order to sharpen and heighten their political understanding and participation in the decision-making processes of the society. This deficiency was clearly illustrated in the 1974 and 1979 Botswana General Elections. In the general Election Study Survey conducted by the Department of Political and Administrative Studies before, during and after the 1974 General Elections, it was revealed that 67,6% of the people interviewed did not know their Member of Parliament, 61% did not know their District Councillor, and 70,5% did not know about the now superceded Accelerated Rural Development Policy. This means that nearly twothirds of the sample were unable to name those people in the National Assembly and District Councils making decisions which intimately affect their lives and many of which representatives had held positions for about ten years. It is clear, therefore, that political parties were not performing this vital function of political education and political mobilization. The absence of adequate political mobilization was also reflected in the low level of electoral participation in the General Election. As is common knowledge, only 34% of the registered voters voted and if this number is compared with the total number of eligible voters, i.e. unregistered and registered voters, the percentage of those who voted would have been even lower. An interesting feature of this aspect of the Survey was that a large majority of the population agreed that it was a good thing to vote whilst about 36,4% said they had not registered to vote. What this reveals is that the people were not politicized enough to understand and appreciate the process through which one legally becomes eligible to vote. This low level of political understanding and political participation was also evident during the 1979 General Election although to a lesser extent. Here again we find the turn-out of registered voters in contested constituencies in some constituencies was very low. The overall percentage poll in contested constituencies was also not impressive for it was only 58,4%, a marked improvement on the 1974 performance but most certainly not spectacular. Again the main source of the problem was lack of motivation, inadequate knowledge about the electoral process. This indicates once more the low degree of political mobilization essential in the motivation and galvanization of the masses for electoral participation. Having said this, one must however observe that there seems to be an awareness among the parties in Botswarna, especially in the BDP, about the need for a concerted programme of political mobilization through seminars etc. geared towards the development of a well-informed and better politicized electorate. This commitment on the part of the BDP is clearly illustrated in the spate of seminars on all the facets of society, i.e. socio-economic and political issues. One hopes that this trend will become an on-going process for political mobilization is an on-going process. One also hopes that this new kind of thinking that is emerging within the BDP will also be adopted by other parties for the programme of political mobilization and political education is the responsibility of all parties in the society. So far opposition parties have tended to concentrate on "freedom square" type of mobilization which is in fact no mobilization at all. This in part may also explain their poor image and electoral performance for it is not enough to stir up people's emotions. What is important is to convert emotions into practical and concrete support manifested in electoral support. 2. The second observation which one can make about political parties in Botswana is that the leadership, especially the upper echelons of the leadership structure, is still monopolized by intellectuals, ex-senior civil servants, businessmen and farmers and the result is that the party leadership circulates among these fractions. This is clearly reflected in the character of the party structure, composition of the National Assembly, and to a lesser extent, the composition of district councils as well as the character and social background of district and National Assembly candidates. An analysis of district and National Assembly candidates for the 1974 General Election revealed that only 1% of the candidates had received no formal education whilst 37% of the candidates had received post primary education. Secondly, National Assembly candidates were better educated than Council candidates. 81 % of the former had secondary or higher education whilst only 20% of the latter had secondary or higher education. This tendency may be related to the English language requirement for Assembly membership. A comparative analysis of parties revealed very little difference. Both BDP and BN F presented university graduates for election, but the three matin parties, BDP, BNF and BPP all presented between 35 - 40% of their candidates with secondary or higher education whilst B IP ranked somewhat lower with 25%. The Survey also revealed that about 53% of Assembly members were professionals, intellectuals and ex-civil servants. Farmers and businessmen make up about 35%. This pattern was also evident at the District Council level, and the same pattern was scattered fairly evenly among all the parties. The representation of manual workers was very minimal about, 5%. Another interesting feature that emerged from the survey was that 74% of the Assembly candidates owned more than 60 head of cattle, while 63% had planted more than 20 acres. Of Council candidates, 56% had more than 25 head of cattle, while 45% had planted more than 20 acres. There was no major difference among the different political parties. This indicated that the political leadership is also an 'elite" of wealth especially when compared to the population as a whole. The most recent data indicates that only about 16% of rural households in Botswana own more than 25 head of cattle, 7% more than 50, and 2% more than 100, whilst about 56% own no cattle at all, and the median holding was 3. This socio-economic complexion of the party leadership was also found to be highly pronounced during the 1979 General Election Study Survey, and this leadership character has not changed significantly among all parties. The party leadership as well as Assembly and Council representation are still manned by people with the same socioeconomic background. The only viable strategy for remedying this tendency appears to lie in increased political education which can be carried out by means of seminars etc. 3. The third observation which can be made about political parties in Botswana is the absence of full-time party cadres whose main function is the mobilization and education of the masses. In other words, a group of party professional cadres who are highly imbued with the party ideology whose main role is to inculcate the party masses with the party ideology. These cadres must be so trained that they can conduct seminars, leadership training courses, etc. on their own. This will of course require a great deal of selfsacrafice on the part of these cadres. Hence they will have to be committed members of the party who will put the party interests and the mobilization of the masses before financial rewards. In short, party cadres are committed individuals who are prepared to become catalysts and agents for social change-and development. In the case of the party in power, in this instance the BDP, they are the ones who make sure that the people understand the BDP ideology within which the development of Botswana must take place. This is to guarantee that the government bureaucracy or civil service, as it is sometimes called, does not sabotage the party programmes. This is important for the party in power cannot depend entirely on government bureaucracy which may be hostile to the party in power. Thus party cadres must be involved in every sphere of socio-economic and political activity. This is particularly so in a country such as Botswana in which the selection, appointment and dismissal of civil servants is based on merit rather than party affiliation.

4. The fourth observation about political parties in Botswana is the lack of ideological clarity. In other words, parties in Botswana tend to want to be all things at the same time. By ideology here is meant a clear statement of goals and objectives the party has set itself to achieve as well as the means by which it would seek to achieve these. In the second place, ideology also means a system of ideas within which the party seeks to achieve these goals and objectives. This absence of ideological clarity is clearly manifested among opposition parties in Botswana, where we find such unclear "ideologies" as African Socialism, etc. This lack of ideological clarity leads them to resort to populist agitation, i.e. trying to tease out emotional support from the masses on the basis of charisma, personal character assasinations, etc. The only parties with somewhat clearer ideologies are the BDP and the BNF. 5. The other observation which can be made is the one concerning the relationship between the party in power and its central committee. This perhaps applies more specifically to the BDP which is the party in power. At present the Cabinet is superior to the party's central committee. This means that the central committee has no way of making sure that the Cabinet will toe the party line. One would have expected the central committee to be the body with a final say even in the selection of Cabinet Ministers in order to make sure that those who become Cabinet Ministers will not deviate from the party line as is the case say for instance in Britain where the Parliamentary Labour Party normally ignores the wishes of the party in general. In order to forestall such tendencies, it is essential that the Cabinet should be subordinate to the central committee of the BDP. This is not to imply however, that there have been such deviations in Botswana. Having made these observations, one must also concede that political parties in Botswana have helped a great deal in the politicization of the masses although there is still ample room for the growth and extension of this vital role if democracy has to have any meaning to the masses. But perhaps more inportantly, political parties in Botswana should be commended for not basing themselves on tribalism although there is evidence that some parties, especially the BPU, are trying to ignite tribal consciousness. It is therefore important that the political mobilization should be intensified so as to sharpen and heighten national consciousr)ess in order to deny those who see tribalism as a reliable stepping stone into political power the opportunity to misuse tribal consciousness.

COMMENTS & ANSWERS Political Parties in Botswana and their Role in Democracy [FIRST COMMEIVTS NOT RECORDED] ANSWER: I said that they really mystify issues and that people do not understand. If government becomes something that exists only at a distance, it is no longer government by the people of the people and for the people. This is particularly so for instance in the so-called Western democracies where government has become so complex that people find it difficult to understand it, even those who went through high school or university. It is not only complex but it hasalso become alienated from the people it claims to represent. Perhaps one advantage you have here in Botswana is that government is not yet too complex and as such it is still very accessible. I think it is one virtue that Botswana still enjoys. People can still walk into government ministries easily. I have heard people commenting here today that it is inaccessible but I think compared to most societies your government is still very accessible and it is still easyto walk into government offices and discuss your problems. Here you can pick up a phone and arrange an appointment with a minister. These are the luxuries which are very rare in other countries. And in most cases, if you do succeed in getting into government office, you end at the level of bureaucracy. Democracy means that a citizen must be able to directly communicate, if he so desires, with the political leadership without being frustrated by bureaucracy. Democracy also means that everybody should be eligible to be elected into leadership position rather than to perpetually remain an elector or voter, and conditions must be created to enable him to do so. it is no democracyif, as in the case of the so-called Western democracies, only the rich can be leaders. This is particularly so in the United States of America, always paraded as a symbol of democracy. Now, what kind of democracy is that in which the majority of people have no chance of being elected into leadership positions and millions still live in abject poverty. The same can be said about some countries in which the bureaucratisation of government has become an end in itself. This is especially so in some countries which call themselves socialist as if socialism means the bureaucratisation of government and society whilst in fact socialism means precisely the opposite. In fact some of these countries have actually lost touch with the people for whom socialism and the communist parties exist, not to lead a better society but rather to coerce them to obey bureaucracy and fulfilling their interests. The point I am trying to make is that the existence of political parties is not a guarantee for the existence of democracy. Even the existence of two or more political parties is not in itself an indication of the existence of democracy. You can have democracy in one-party state. That is why I said that a multi-party system does not necessarily mean the existence of democracy and that you can have democracy without political parties. What is important is how the government is organised, by whom it is organised. Political parties only exist as catalysts to maximise the democratisation process but again not all parties do this and some are incapable of doing so because of their class character and the class interests they serve. I do not know whether this answers your question?

COMMENT: Mr Chairman, having listened to this lecture and listening to the discussion, Imust admit I'm getting more confused all the time, I have the impression that the lecturer must be a bit out-dated when he criticizes a general lack of political education such as the seminars we hold. I was going to add that in Botswana, as a matter of policy, we hold meetings more often at the Kgotla then at the freedom squares. i want to correct this, because he said that there has been a preponderance of freedom square meetings, These meetings at the Kgotla can be held by MPs, they can be held by the Councillors, they can be held by MPs of both parties - of all political parties. I think this is real democracy. He went on to talk about ignorance and said that if a man doesn "t really understand what he is doing, we can hardly say there is democracy. Certainly we consider that ignorance is a very dangerous thing. But I also think that obtaining knowledge is a long-term process. I know in our situation what we were expected to do over the last sixteen years, we have been politicising people and I think this is really bearing fruit. He talked about people not understanding inflation but they do understand inflation in Botswana. They do understand that diamonds can't be sold, they understand; they can't talk about recession, but they do understand that this situation is world wide. As I said,. I think your research has not been as good as I expected it to be. My last observation is that the lecturer also said that voting on tribal lines can hardly be said to be democratic. I agree, but tell me, what is the alternative? Would you say it is democratic ifa man, for instance from Okavango, gets to be an MP for Kanye North? Surely that Member would not understand the problems of that area. This sort of thing is not only happening in Botswana. If you go to Britain, in the House of Parliament, the Scottish Nationalists represent the constituencies in Scotland, Welsh Nationalists represent their constituencies there. Even in the Democracy that we respect so much - America, Edward Kennedy has been a Senator for more than 20 years for the same constituency because he was born in that area. Much of this has already been said by others, but I want to stress that you must be a little out-dated if you don't know that we have had more Kgotla meetings than freedom square meetings. This is certainly very democratic because at the Kgotla meetings we politicize and tell people of all political states and opinions. ANSWER: Thank you Mr Chairman. I am sorry if I have confused people. When I said political parties in Botswana do not mobilize the masses and only organise them for elections, I was not specifically talking about the BDP but I was making a general observation about all political parties in Botswana. I did concede in my paper that BDP is organising seminars throughout the country, but even this is a recent thing, meaning that the BDP has just started this process quite recently. And when I talked about the ignorance of the masses, I meant politicised and sensitized masses so that their political consciousness can be heightened. Hence I said political mobilisation is a long term and an on-going process and not a one day occurrence. I however did make a concession that parties in Botswana did mobilise people, during the colonial era. With regard to inflation, I do concede that people do understand that things are expensive, but I think I will differ with you when you say that they do really understand why things suddenly become expensive. I don't think they understand the meaning of inflation. I do not know whether I personally can claim to know because I am not an economist. People do understand that things are expensive in the shops but I don't know whether they understand the real source of the problem. I think that these are the issues that they require to know. This is necessary so that when the government says that diamonds are no longer selling because of inflation people should understand, for they know that some few years ago they were in great demand. These are some of the fundamental issues that must form part of the political mobilisation process. With regard to the question of tribalism I raised in my paper, I want to say that I did not state that everybody votes along tribal lines and that if a person stays or resides in Kanye or Serowe he will necessarily vote along tribal lines. What I said was that in most cases, people here in Botswana, especially in the rural areas, vote along tribal or ethnic lines. They do not vote for candidates on the basis of merit. I did concede that this is not a problem peculiar to Botswana. My contention is that people must be mobilised so that they should vote for leadership quality and not because so and so is known to me or he is a son of so and so. I think people can be politicised to understand and appreciate this. COMMENT: Mr Chairman, Sir, / would like to comment on this. I think we tend to become defensive in our approach to these topics and I don't think we should, ladies and gentlemen, we should be open-minded, broad-minded, face issues as they are, so that we can go and mobilise our people. In fact, I think when that point of voting on tribal lines was mentioned, as explained he really didn't mean that a particular person was voting for that particular person because he is so and so. We here know for a fact that sometimes that is the tendency. That is why even in some areas, people say - we want our own councillor from this village. What he is saying is that we must try to break through that boundary. There are people who say - we don't want to elect so and so because he is not from this particular area. This is why Mr Chairman, Sir, .1 am saving we shouldn't be defensive. In the UK, for instance, you have George Powell, a conservative radical who went from England and was elected in Northern Ireland. Again. in England, you see Shirley Williams who was defeated in the constituency where she lived, and she moved to another constituency. Jenkins, who is the leader of the Social. Democratic Party, went into some other constituency where he doesn 't even live. You don't necessarily have to know the problems of your area. If you are elected an MP in, some other district, you must make an effort to study and get to know those problems. COMMENT: The Speaker made some really valid points on the question of mobilisaton, community education, community. organisation. This is in .order to be able to carry with. you as leaders the rest of the community, rather than only develop sectionally. This recognises, among other things, that human beings have a right to be involved in whatever developments may affect their fellow men. Secondly, because ideas of programmes are best done or carried out through involvement and consultation of the people rather than through imposition. Thirdly, I believe 'that everybody possesses some potential, for development, irrespective of his educational standard. If I could go back to your question on the non-importance of education, I tend to differ with. you slightly here, I would say that the level of education in our modern development is very very important. I make a very big .difference between intelligence and acquired knowledge. A person who has been to school and has received some education has acquired certain skills which will put that person in a better position to be able to carry out leadership responsibility. Whereas if you take a man with, say a level of primary education, and put him. in .this complex machinery of government, this be- comes very difficult for him. I would say that whilst we should recognise intelligence and ability, on the other hand we should remember that acquired knowledge does go a long way towards building a leadership capacity in a man to be able to carry on, You have quoted examples of other people with very little education or primary school education. One should go on to add to that list by quoting people like Churchill,. Sir Roul Wellingskins and so on. We are talking of people who are adults, people who have grown up in a system of their own. Unfortunately, with. us here in Africa, in a majority of cases we are importing a system which is entirely new to us. That is the first disadvantage that you have to face as an African Leader. The other thing I want to say is that we should regard the Sir Wellingskins, the Churchills and others as exceptions rather than the rule. Having said that, I agree with. you on the question of mobilisation and carrying the people along with. us. I wanted to make the observation that there is a very big difference. You also talked about this clear ideological position. Now, I don't know what you really call a "clear political ideological position". We have noticed in Africa that in certain countries, certain governments which inherited wealth from their former colonial masters, because of certain foreign ideological policies, had squandered all that wealth in .no time. I don't know whether you call that bad ideology because in fact whoever copied or imported this ideology continues to regard it as a goodpolitical ideology. How do we go round such situations to convince these people that the ideology they copied from the East is worse than the ideology from the West? How do you differentiate between what you call a clear ideological position. I don't know whether I am making myself clear? Then you raised the issue of people wanting to remain in positions of leadership for all times. I think this happens quiteoften where people fought for their freedom. The man who emerged at the time of independence was the man who used the barrel of the gun to take over the reigns of government. Experience has shown that it is people like this who ultimately want to rule, whether they have got the ability or not, even when you want to get things to normal and have a proper government centre, because they maintain that they fought for the country and they want to maintain their leadership. Of course they fight and then when they come in they say they are doing things in the name of freedom, but eventually they have an army built around them. In other words, what they really have is security rather than freedom. I think that to some extent, this is the sort of thing that can be caused by inadequacy in aggregational attainment. A man who feels he is not properly equipped and who therefore cannot face competition from other people who perhaps are better qualified. Let me say just one last thing. When you brought up this question of people using their tribal affiliation to be able to get positions, either in employment or even in government, this is a very very common feature in Africa. It has already been mentioned that we are aware of it here. I think there is far less of this in this country, to the best of our knowledge, but it is certainly terrible, it is disgusting to see some of the best African Leaders packed off in a corner because they came from minority groups. This is a fact. I would like to ask whether you have any remedy for this type of thing it goes on and on. Earlier, you were talking in very general terms, saying you were coming back home to talk about parties in Botswana, One would like to have seen some real comparative comments, analyses of what has been achieved in this country. This is why you got some reaction which you may have thought uncomplimentary. We do run seminars and in fact, if the Secretary General would be generous enough to show you a big sheet which shows what transpired throughout the country this year, you would see that we've had seminars all over the country; those that are organised by the Central Committee and those that are run locally. This would give you some indication of our ample efforts in trying to make democracy work in this country. I also want to emphasise that the constitution of our party is made in such a way that it provides a machinery for the people of this country to start first of all with the party to decide at the time ot election who is going to stand. If they are not satisfied with the performance of the particu- lar leader, then of course he is gotten rid of. It has nothing to do with the President. It is the people who actually elect you, who decide whether they think you should go back or not. As I say, I would have been happier if you could have perhaps gone deeper by completing an analysis of what actually happens here. COMMENT: Thank you Mr Chairman. His explanation is a good one, a valid one. Ba gaetsho, let us not take positions in our comments and answers. What some lecturers are saying here may be their personal opinions or general opinions, let us after comments say, well, given a situation, what do you think about this and that? My own suggestion is that after we have heard all of it, we should get together as a party and say, what has Mr Nengwekhulu said, what has Professor Sharma said, what do we think we should extract, and then take positions, let us not take positions now. Now, / want questions and'very few comments, no positions. As I said, comparative studies is a very good thing. COMMENT: Mr Chairman, the topic before us on which we are invited to comment is "Political Parties in Botswana and their Role in Democracy'; We have, of course, tended to take positions, tended to disagree with the lecturer on his observation, or on the adequacy of the study he made. I'm inclined to agree with him, that whilst it is essential for a Political Party to mobilise the masses and of course for leaders to teach themselves how to handle knives of this type, whilst it is important to do that and perhaps to do so by organising seminars, it is not altogether incorrect to observe, as Mr Nengwekhulu has observed, that not much has been done, if not by the BDP but perhaps by the other political parties. The effectiveness of political mobilisation can also be measured by the specific membership of the political party. That can be identified just like that. I would like to submit that even in our case, supposedly an organised political party, we have not done enough to be able to identify our membership. We have what appears to be a spontaneous support, particularly when we go to the polls and organise our rallies at freedom squares and so forth, and we have been happy that the response has been spontaneous. But when you take a cross section of membership, it has not really been identifiable which tends to belle the contention that we have effectively mobilised the people. The seminars to which you have referred to are a new development, a recent occurence. Happily, they tend to be widely spread. But if one were to take stock of the attendance at these seminars in order to justify the contention that we have in fact put across our democratic message to the people, it will definitely be question marked. So we are to carry out our processes of democratisation much more effectively than we have done so far. At these freedom square meetings, which are a common feature, the attendance is very poor, to say the least. The people are hardly ever there. Only a few people come, or perhaps if you happen to hold your meeting near a public bar somewhere, you see all these drunken chaps coming to rally around and make more noise than listen to your message. Unfortunately, our supporters tend to take things for granted so that when meetings are called, they are not there. Our resources are not limitless and therefore, we cannot keep crossing the country in our endeavour to mobilise the people. This is desirable but the resources do not permit. I think the observation by Mr Nengwekhulu is not far from the truth. As far as it relates to the rate of attendance that can be observed at our political meetings, I think we have to do a bit more than we are doing now. In advanced political organisation, it is easy to say we are going to win. We are sure that in such and such an area we are likely to have our support halved or diminished to a certain extent. In my view, Mr Nengwekhulu, you are not far from the truth in your casual study. Thank you very much.

ANSWER: Thank you Mr Chairman. I think it is quite encouraging that we are differing. In a way I have achieved what I wanted to achieve i.e. that people should not be intimidated by a person from the university because they assumed that he has all the knowledge which of course is not true. Perhaps I should admit that I should have given you a comparative analysis of the different parties in Botswana. I do have a comparative left out in my address. I left it out because I was not sure whether I should identify other parties by name when they are not here to respond, for this is a BDP seminar. I therefore felt that I should talk in general. I did however identify BD'P by name when I said that it has begun to organise seminars. But I can assure you that this comparative analysis of parties is incorporated in my paper. First I want to respond to the point made regarding the problem of overcoming the English language barrier and the foreign nature of the political system. I do admit that there is a language problem. But do we necessarily have to conduct all business in English? I do not think that it is absolutely necessary for the government to conduct its business in English nor do I think it is necessary for parliament to conduct its business in English only. I think it is necessary to look into the possibilities for conducting parliamentary and government business in an indigenous language. The insistence on English as a medium of conducting government business may be keeping out many good leaders because they cannot communicate in English. I think this is a challenge that must be tackled. The Chinese do not conduct their business in English and in Tanzania, Swahili has become an official language in which to conduct government business. I do think there is a need to look into the possibilities and whatever decision is reached must be based on an assessment of the actual advantages and disadvantages. I don't think it should just be taken for granted that English must be the medium through which government business will be conducted. The second point raised concerns the "foreign political system" or Westminsterbased political system in operation in Botswana. This of course includes political parties. My contention is that the whole political system requires modification in order to suit local conditions so that it can best meet the aspirations of the people it seeks to serve. In any case, some modifications have already been effected. For instance, there is already a House of Chiefs, a system of District Councils, etc. The third question concerns the issue of leadership. It is true that certain positions in government etc. require formal academic training, for instance in technical fields such as engineering. But my argument is that political positions do not require a formal academic qualification. I was not particularly referring to the BDP. I was making a general observation in the context of Botswana. But I still contend that there has not been any fundamental leadership circulation in the parties in Botswana since their inception. What I mean is that party leadership positions haved largely remained a monopoly of a small group since their formation. The same observation applies to the character of parliament. This is especially so because of the English language requirement. But my contention is that you do not need an education certificate or proficiency in English in order to become a cabinet minister. An understanding and commitment to party ideology I think is the only major qualification needed for political leadership positions and of course leadership qualities. The other point raised concerns what I called clear ideological positions. I do not believe that there is such a thing as foreign ideology because an ideology is a system of ideas through which people look at society and decide how it should be structured. In other words, it is a system of socio-economic and political beliefs, about the best wayto organize society. In practice, ideology is expressed in the form of policies or manifes- toes put out by parties, governments, individuals, etc. Thus the BDP ideology is expressed in its policies of social justice, democracy, free enterprise or capitalist system, etc. In short, the BDP manifesto is a condensation of its statement of beliefs about how Botswana must be organised, developed, etc. A party must spell out its ideological position on how it intends to organize society. That is what I mean by ideology and ideological clarity. There is no such thing as neutrality when it comes to ideological position. Ideological clarity helps people to make proper choices. To me it is false to argue that some parties are not ideological. It is interesting that only Marxism, or Socialism and Communism are labelled foreign ideologies whilst liberalism, capitalism are never categorised as such. Thus the exposition of socialism or marxism in Africa is labelled exposition of foreign ideology whilst the promotion of capitalism is not labelled as such. But socialism and communism are as universal as capitalism. They know no geographical, racial or ethnic boundaries. With regard to tribalism, I have argued that one of the remedies is the development of a national consciousness. Tribal pride and awareness should come second to national pride. I think this is one area that requires the attention of political parties in Botswana, although of course there are politicians who would like to perpetuate the existence of tribalism for their own political ends. The other point concerns the reasons why the masses are kept ignorant. My argument is that they are kept ignorant by those in power so that they should pose no threat to the interest of those in power. This has become a widespread practice in Africa. Hence the systematic programme of depolitisation i.e. emptying people of all relevant political knowledge acceptable to those in power. The masses are only seen as voters, never as leaders, and they normally only exist during elections. There is no programme of political education. This feature, to a certain extent, exists in Botswana. The structure and complexion of the leadership of the different parties bear testimony to this as I have attempted to show in my paper. COMMENT. Thank you Mr Chairman. Mr Nengwekhulu said that in his research he has realised that there are very few peasants and workers in the leadership hierarchy - apparently meaning the leadership hierarchy of the parties as they exist in Botswana. / wanted him to expand on this because I think in this country we tend to think that people understand at grassroots level, whether they be called peasants whatever that may mean, or workers. We see that they understand but when you say that there is an absence of workers and peasants in the leadership hierarchy, precisely what did you mean by that? Thank you Sir. COMMENT: Mr Chairman, there are a few things that / am still not clear about. When the lecturer opened his remarks, I thought he was very aggressive on certain issues. He spoke of democracy without political parties, education and participation, clear ideologies and failure to mobilise the people which although discussed by some of my colleagues, / am still not very clear about. What I am also not clear about is why the speaker was so cautious not to delve too deeply. He was speaking about political parties in Botswana and / thought he was going to be very aggressive and say: democracy without political parties. He should have gone as far as to say that political parties are a waste of time, I thought he would say something like that. Perhaps if you come to the educational part of it, .you will draw the line and say - you have no education so educate the masses. About participation, I thought he would point. out that perhaps our political system in Botswana doesn't require. mass participation. Coming to clear ideologies, / thought he would draw the line to indicate that our policies or ideologies in Botswana are not very clear. / thought he would make these points and make them very clear. I don 't know, Mr Chairman, why the speaker was a bit shy not to go too deeply, because in actual fact he was speaking about Botswana. / would like him to elaborate on those points if time permits. Thank you Mr Chairman.

COMMENT Thank you, Mr Chairman. The speaker emphasised the point. bf political education, of developing political centres. You said unless the masses or the people can be educated and understand what democracy is all about and so that they can understand the policies of the party, these parties may deteriorate intD political organisations over the people. You gave the example of the Labour Party in Britain, for instance, where there appears to be a difference between the Parliamentary Party and the masses. You tended to emphasise the education by the Party as if you assume political indoctrination by one party of its members. But you didn't include at any stage just what the role of a government is in politicising the people, rather than the parties politicising their members. In Britain, for instance, the literacy rate is quite high and the mass media readily available so that people can be politicised through the mass media. In Botswana, however, we lack the mass media and illiteracy is quite high. 1 assume in comparing the two countries there is a slightly different approach because the environment is completely different. But whether it is Britain or Botswana, in .a multi-party situation there is competing interests with. either ideological differences between the parties or different policies. Consequently the parties in a multi-party system compete for position or for government, if you want to put it that way. The fact that there is a possiblityof change of government means there is strict membership of one political party which may have been indoctrinated, but there is still that middle of the road voter or electorate who can either be on one side or the other. These are the voters who may be carried by one party because at a particular time this party happened to have policies which they felt are quite sensible compared to others. Otherwise there would be no reason why, for instance, in Britain there is one government every 10 years or every five years. The reason is that other members are not really committed to one party or the other. I hope you can clarify your position regarding political education, whether you meant the doctrinaire type of brainwashing. In other words, / may be brainwashed into voting for the Democratic Party but I don't think the majority of the people are. ANSWER: I will start by answering the question about what I meant by peasants and workers. I did not say that there were no peasants and workers in the leadership hierarchies of the parties. I said that their numbers are limited and that this is not only so with the BDP but with all the other parties. I said that the reason is that most of them are kept ignorant and unpoliticised. And because of their ignorance i.e. lack of necessary formal education, they tend to feel that they do not qualify for leadership positions. By workers I mean those who own nothing except their labour power, the ones we call earners or blue collar workers. A peasant is someone who produces his subsistence from land and he produces for consumption, not for the market or sale. The other question concerns my argument that democracy can exist without political parties. My contention is that democracy existed long before the emergence of political parties which have existed for less than one hundred years. I gave the example of precolonial Botswana when mass participation in decision- making processes occurred without political parties. Participation was direct and open to all adult citizens. But I also said that in the present complex society, political parties do help a great deal because they simplify complex issues and sometimes heightened political participation But not all parties succeed in doing so, for it is only a democratic party which can perform this vital function. Some parties actually depoliticise and stultify the masses. It is not therefore the number of political parties that counts but the character of the party or parties. Thus the existence of a multi-party system is not a precondition for the existence of democracy nor is the presence of one party an indication of the absence of democracy. In fact, some of the most reactionary regimes exist in societies with a multi-party system. Your other question refers to political education by the party. I emphasised the role of political parties in the process of political education because I am talking about political parties and because in Botswana government also means party government because it is formed by the party that wins the elections. It is also true that political education is a long and complex process and as such cannot be performed by parties alone. Other institutions such as schools, churches, families, etc. also serve as agencies for political education. Government also performs this vital function which some people call political or ideological indoctrination by the government i.e. the party in power, etc. Once in power, every party will strive to implement its own way of thinking i.e. its ideology and it does this by transforming its ideology into a national ideology. National Ideologies such as national policies are in fact party idelogies, given the mask of national character. Hence the national development policies i.e. how the BDP would like Botswana to develop, i.e. its ideas about development. Thus education in Botswana must be defined and implemented in the context of this ideological position. We cannot expect it to promote the social Ideological position for the BDP promotes capitalism. The same will apply to any party that supports socialism. Once in power, it will not accept an education that promotes capitalist values. COMMENT: Mr Chairman, lam glad the speaker has ultimately landed, / would just like to request him to perhaps reconcile a few points and give us a perfect trial balance. He stressed that people should not vote along tribal lines, we should consider the skills. / wanted him to reconcile this point because we as the BDP chose our candidate and we rally behind that candidate. If another candidate is far better than ours as far as skills are concerned, we request our supporters to choose this man on the Party Ticket. How do we reconcile Party Ticket choice with the choice of skills. The other thing you mentioned was that a Party should have supremacy in government. In our type of government which is an Administrative type, how could a Party have supremacy without clashing with the interests of government which are propagated through the efficiency of the public service? On the question of circulation of leadership, I would like the speaker to elaborate on this, bearing in mind that we have to build up experience andstore knowledge in the government and in the Party, make a continuous contribution to what we have started by building up experienced people. How do we reconcile that if we have to keep changing and circulating leadership? Thank you Sir. COMMENT: Mr Chairman, thank you very much. There has been a mention of democracy whether it is in a one-party state or a multi-party state. I want to put it on record that in Botswana we practise democracy in a multi-party system. Mr Chairman, Sir, I know many people are getting worried about the democracy in this country and / want to affirm it is there. I want to illustrate my point this way: in a multi-party system, parties are free to register as long as they satisfy the needs of the law. Thereafter, they can go throughout the country mobilising people depending on their strength and the trust the people have in them. Then they can go for elections. Anyway, there is mention of Political Education. We can go to a certain level in my opinion when we want to keep people in leadership. I quite appreciate what the speaker says that perhaps someone must show the ability in his commitment to the Party, but you meet problems sometimes. / am afraid this might be a hot case but I will have to illustrate it. if you get a messenger in a Council making estimates, there is a problem. Council estimates only take 30 minutes but some people don't understand the complication of the figures. The same thing happens to the National Assembly during the budget session. lf you follow the Bill very very closely, you realise that some of it is irrelevant, they are not discussing the budget, it is complicated. Therefore, I think a certain level of education is very important. Mr Chairman, / quite agree with the speaker that it would be unwise that people should vote on tribal lines. / think we should start to be nationals. The problem in our society is very complex and we actually need politicaJ parties to mobiise the people because there are many people now. It is no longer like in the past when there were very few people in the community, where they participated in the mobifisation of a nation of no more than 20 000 - now we talk in terms of millions. You can't all go there, in Parliament that is why we have a representative form of democracy. The initial democracy was Direct Democracy which had occurred even here in Botswana. I still maintain that you can have it and 1 just tried to illustrate that you should not get the idea that political parties are pre- conditions. We can have them and still not have democracy. We have societies who might have more than five parties. as we have in Botswana but which are not even democratic. The other question is that of skills, to have a Party Ticket. / maintain that somebody should not be allowed to be in government just because he wants to be helped by the party. If you want to go into a government through a Party, you go according to the Party Ticket, you must abide by the rules of the Party otherwise you have to be independent. I feel skills should be provided by seminars of this nature. I think here we try to impart skills, not of accounting qr of how to write, a report, but what actually are the principles or aims, firstly of the BDP as a Party. Secondly, how do we implement these principles. We are spending these two days here in order to clarify these issues, so that people are aware of what the BDP stands for and the type of mechanism it intends to implement. To me, if a member understands the basic position of the BDP and the manner in which the BDP wants to implement its aims, he has already graduated. He can take over the leadership of the Party because he understands. When he has complex problems, he has an adviser. That is why Ministers have advisers, they advise the Minister if he goes against the Party line. We should look at our candidates according to their ability. COMMENT: Thank you Mr Chairman. i think one bird in hand is worth two in the bush. On one hand, Mr Nengwekhulu, the BDP has done all that you have said to a large extent. If you are going to speak about changing leadership at this point in time, / think we have enough facts to believe that the institution so far has allowed for change of leadership provided the candidates identify themselves properly. I want to ask a question in connection with continuity. We have experts coming and going, generally in a space of two years. How can you have continuity if you are relying on experts who come and go? If you want continuity, what is the remedy for it? That is all. ANSWER: Thank you Mr Chairman. I have said that democracy does not depend on the existence of parties. Perhaps we can again define what democracy means. Democracy is a form of socio-economic and political organisation which is usually explained by the phrase "for the people of the people and by the people". In short, it means the socio-economic and political control of the national resources of the society. When I talk about skills, I mean party skills as well as leadership skills. My point is that one does not go to school to acquire leadership skills. The most school education can do is to sharpen them. Formal education does not and cannot create leadership skills. The other question concerns the issue of party supremacy, i.e. the supremacy of the party over the government. What I mean is that cabinet ministers should be under the indirect control of the party through its central executive committee. What this means is that the party should be able to overrule the cabinet because the cabinet should be seen as a mere messenger and instrument of the party in power. As to the question of how to do this in the BDP, I do not think I am able to offer advice. It is up to the BDP to devise the mechanisms. I am only offering my own opinion and as I said, in my opinion the government should be subordinate to the party. This guarantees that the government should not deviate from the party ideology. As to the question of circulation and continuity, I do not think there is any contradiction between circulation and continuity. My point is that there can be continuity with circulation. I do not believe that the same leadership should perpetuate and reproduce itself in the name of continuity. The party educates its members so that they can critically evaluate party leadership. COMMENT: Thank you very much. Mr Nengwekhulu is a very good lecturer, he provokes and ultimately lands. I want to address the question of the party resources. I do understand there can be serious problems, if we believe in a nation with freedom of association which means that anvbody can go to a bar and start a political party. We therefore can not utilise government resources in order to support a particular political party. That is why in certain societies they decided to have the party forum. There are dangers of course. When you put the party above everything, you must be convinced that it is the right party that can lead the society to the destination we want to achieve. It depends on whether the people of Botswana believe the BDP is the right party. For the proper development of society, the party has to control the government machinery. You cannot allow government to control the party, otherwise party policies will never be carried out. Government policy is a party policy. You won't have the problem of sabotage, that is why I have said that it is very important for the party to trace traders who are committed. In government you have party members. I think even the Labour Party tried to introduce it about three years ago where the Minsiter had a party adviser in his office who was paid for by the government party. He remains there to look after the party interest, to ensure that the Minister is not deviating from the Party Line. You cannot actually compromise on that because you are in power, you want your policies to be implemented. You can't actually want to implement them and at the same time satisfy the other parties. It doesn't work that way. Parties want power in order to implement their own policies. Political parties can therefore never be neutral. They want to promote the ideologies which they believe in.. If somebody believes his ideology is a better one, he should acquire. a political party also. I think we must seriously consider these things. We must defend the party's objectives and not restrict the party to a role of an ordinary organisation, no longer controlling the government. I believe that the BDP members have the right to control the Ministries so that at the next party session, they can actually refuse to elect them into party positions. They have that right because they are there in order to represent the interest of the people. It may sound very difficult to reconcile.but we have to accept that if we want to remain in power, parties must be vehicles to democracy. They must remove Ministers in power that are no longer representing our interests. ANSWER- Thank you Mr Chairman. I think this is one of the most controversial issues. We came to accept that the existence of two or more parties not necessarily indicates the existence of democracy in the society. My contention is that we have a ,umber of examples that can illustrate that a multi-party system does not indicate the existence of democracy.

A BRIEF COMPARISON OF POLITICAL IDEOLOGIES AND SYSTEMS Liberalism, Conservatism, Socialism, Social Democracy, Communism, etc. by Dr E. Adam, Director, Friedrich Ebert Foundation, Gaborone Your Excellency, Mr Chairman, Honourable Ministers and Members of Parliament, Councillors, Members of the National Executive of the BDP Youth Wing. I feel very honoured to have this opportunity to address you this morning, but it is also a burden. It is very difficult to deliver a speech after the very important opening speech of His Excellency and I must confess I am not really used to talking to an audience like this. I have presented you with a chart (see p.75) which basically consists of catch words. The first two pages show the historical origin and development of political philosophies and movements in Europe. The next two pages attempt to show a more systematic comparison between the different philosophies: from Liberalism, Conservatism, Democratic Socialism to Communism, and the last two pages concentrate on political systems in Africa such as the Multi-Party System, the One-Party System and the Military Regime. Before I start to talk on the basis of this paper, I have to make some general remarks. If we are talking about political movements or political philosphies, we have to realise that these are a response to specific historical situations, and a result of social and economic changes. As an example, your party, the Botswana Democratic Party, came into existence in the early sixties as a reaction against colonialism and South Africa's attempts to take over this territory, and also as a result of social changes and development in Botswana. New people took over the lead of the party, people who were more educated than in the past but not necessarily of high traditional ranks. Secondly, if I am talking about political philosophies or political systems and I attempt to make a comparison, I am not talking about systems in reality. That means that if I speak about Communism I am not basically discussing the Soviet Union, and if I talk about Multi-Party Systems in Africa, I am not specifically referring to Botswana. However, I am prepared, if necessary during our discussion, to go into a more concrete analysis of the reality of these political systems. I want to emphasize that I am merely discussing general principles, which I will attempt to do as systematically as possible. To give an example, it is as if we were discussing automobiles - not the different makes and models, but the principles, such as 4-wheel drive as compared to front wheel drive, diesel engines as compared to petrol engines, engine cooling systems based on air as against water. Also, I will try to be as neutral and objective as possible, but 1 am sure you will appreciate I hold political views of my own.

HISTORICAL ORIGINS OF POLITICAL PHILOSOPHIES AND MOVEMENTS I will closely follow the charts and catch words as presented in my paper (see p,75) Starting with the question of the historical origin of political philosophies and movements, I will give a general outline of the political and social-economic situation in Europe during the 18th century. The society of that period has been termed "Feudal Society" and the political system "Absolutism". In political terms, that means an absolute monarch with graduated rights for most of its people from the monarch down: the nobility, clergy, citizens and those peasants with property rights, Serfs, labourers, small traders and so on had no rights at all. Generally, the Absolute Monarchs owned the land as well as the people living on it, Thus there were cases where land was sold along with the people and the villages in which they lived. In other cases, part of the population was sold as soldiers to fight in the American independence War, for example, This Feudal Society underwent big changes as a result of the development of new industries - the so-called Industrial Revolution - which led to a new mode of production and the formation of new social classes. Production started to take place more and more in large factories under a specialised Division of Labour, bringing a new class of people as workers into the industrial system with less training and skills as compared to the craftsmen of the older manufacturing establishments. Basically, there were two new social classes, as illustrated (see p.76): the Bourgeoisie and the Proletariat. The Bourgeoisie could be divided into the Propertied Class and the Educated Class. The Propertied Class included the industrialists, owners of industries, bankers and business men, the Educated Class consisted of the Academics and the Professionals. The Proletariat was made up of those owning no property, the workers, craftsmen, servants, hawkers, etc. To give another example of the difference in historical development and conditions between 18th century Europe and modernday Africa: in Europe the Proletariat was just left to live off the sale of its labour; they owned no propertv nor did they have access to the land because it was still owned by the Monarch and the Feudal Landlords. In Africa, on the other hand, even people who have migrated to urban areas are still entitled to access to their lands, and in difficult times can try to live off the production of their lands, whereas the Proletariat of 18th century Europe just had nowhere to go. The Bourgeoisie wanted new political rights and a new order in the economy, and this finally led to the French Revolution of 1789. The Bourgeoisie basically formulated a new political philosophy which was called "Liberalism". I have tried to outline the general principles of Liberalism by dividing it into the Political Order and the Economic Order. If you look at the Political Order, the Bourgeoisie wanted new political rights which they did not have in the past. They wanted sovereignty of the people, Constitutions, Human Rights and a Parliamentary System but they also wanted a franchise based on property qualification. This meant that only property owners paying taxes would be entitled to Vote in elections. I think we had a comparatively similar system for instance during the first elections in Zambia in the early sixties, where people were entitled to vote according to their properties and the taxes they paid.

Coming to the Economic Order: its principles are freedom of property ownership, free market competition and no State intervention. The Economic Order should be based on the labour of those owning no property, and it is sometimes called "Manchester Liberalism" - I think most of you have heard this term. The Proletariat (the workers and craftsmen) for a long time supported the requests of the Bourgeoisie, of the Liberals, as far as the political order was concerned. They also asked for some institutions of political participation, but there were major differences in their concept of a new Economic Order. This movement, which has been named the Socialist Movement, was a very broad stream of political thinking, of philosophies which came into existence as a reaction against inequalities, against the injustice of the new Social Order. I have listed some of the main political leaders: in France, Proudhon, Saint-Simon and Fourier, who are also called the Early Socialists; they had a different view of the new political, economic and social order than the Marxist views of later times. In Germany we have Marx and Engels, who are well known, and also Lasalle, who was one of the founders of the Social Democratic Movement. In Britain we have with Owens another Early Socialist, who wanted society to be built on small cooperative units, and later in the 19th century, there was the Fabian Society. Thus, up to the present time, the British Labour Party is not essentially a Marxist Party; there are only a few small groups who have opted for Marxism. As you can see, the main stream of socialism was formed by very different political philosophies. I think I should also mention that there were many Christian religious motives which contributed to socialist thinking. I think one of the main features of socialism is that the existing society is regarded as one that can be lead to a much better organisation of cooperation between the people. The main topics (see p.75) clearly illustrate the difference with Liberalism. Whereas Liberalism wanted private ownership of the modes of production, Socialism wanted joint control, production to be controlled by society as a whole. Society as a whole should be responsible for the democratic state. They wanted equal rights, and one of the arguments is based on a classless society. We often hear of socialisation, and sometimes it is just used as an excuse for the nationalisation or state ownership of major industries. To be more precise: socialisation, in the social thinking of the 19th century, meant making sure that the interest of the community as a whole had priority over individual interests. On the right side (see p.75) I have tried to outline the development of Conservatism. Its basic origins were attempts to defend the old Feudal Society and political order of Absolutism. It really gained its political force as a reaction against the French Revolution. I would like to outline some general principles, but first I must mention that Conservatives nowadays no longer defend Absolute Monarchy as a political model. I think they have by far accepted democracy and parliamentary representation. Generally speaking Conservatism could be defined by some catch words: defence of traditional order and class privileges. There is a preference for institutions and practices that have evolved historically. There is a strong emphasis on continuity and stability. Conservatism is often associated with some traditional and established form of religion. It is a distrust of human nature, which is one of the differences between Conservatism and Liberalism. Liberalism basically concentrates on rationalism. It believes that by the rational use of the brain, people will be able to lead the old society towards a better one. Conservative thinking, on the other hand, has a distrust of human nature, which sometimes leads to the request for a strong and authoritative form of Government which would lead the people. Conservatism has been considered an inarticulate state of mind and not an ideology at all. To speak in brackets (it is something which could be called the ideology of non-ideology because no political movement is without ideology. We always have a formulation of goals and principles which define our ideology.) As mentioned before, conservatism is anti-rational. I quote: "Liberalism argues Conservatism simply is." It often appeals to emotions and diffuse values. Coming to the next page (see p.76), here I have tried to outline the split of the Socialist movement, because to me it seems very important to have a clear distinction between what is known as Democratic Socialism or Social Democracy and what is named Marxism-Leninism or Communism or sometimes Scientific Socialism. I think there were splits within the socialist movement even before the First World War, there were ideological tensions: the question of reform in societies vs revolution, the question of the role of power vs the role of parliamentary democracy. In Germany, the Social Democratic Party was prepared to work within the Parliamentary system. They wanted Parliamentary representation and took part in the elections In the last part of the 19th century, winning comparatively large percentages of the electorates. As I have outlined using catch words, one of the main areas of conflict was the question of Nationalism vs Proletarian Internationalism. I think most of the workers or the socialist parties choose Nationalism, sometimes under great constraints, because they preferred to defend their own nations during the First World War. The other side, however, based on remarks by Marx who has said "The proletariat does not have a homeland", argued that the proletarians of all nations should be united and fight against the Bourgeoisie, whose nationalism was held responsible for the military actions. Another step in the division of the socialist movement was the Russian Revolution and the formation of the Communist Party. The revolution of February 1917 can be termed a Social Democratic Revolution. In October 1917 we had another overthrow of the existing government by the Bolshevists under the leadership of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin, who founded the Communist Party in 1918. In order to clarify the differences of the two movements emerging from the socialist movement of the 19th century, I have used quotes from Karl Kautsy of 1918 (he was the leader of the Social Democratic Party in Germany) as compared to a quote from Vladimir Ilyich Lenin of 1919, after the formation of the Communist Party in Russia. Kautsky said: "To us socialism without democracy is unthinkable. By modern socialism we understand not merely the social organisation of production, but also the democratic organisation of society ... No socialism without democracy." Lenin, on the other hand said, "Dictatorship is a power based directly on force which is not bound by any laws whatsoever. The revolutionary dictatorship of the Proletariat is a power which is acquired and asserted by the use of force by the Proletariat against the Bourgeoisie, a power that is not bound to any laws whatsoever." I think it is always difficult to take quotes out of context but I felt justified in taking these two quotes as they really clarify the difference between Democratic Socialism and Communism. Coming to Democratic Socialism or Social.Democracy, there is first of all the concept of a gradual construction of Socialism, which means a step-by-step construction, by means of reforms and not revolutions. Also, there is no uniform plan for society which means that Socialism is the principle of societal organisation, not a certain stage of historical development which has clearly defined demarcations. It is basically a principle and a goal for social, economic and political development, which may be followed by gradual construction, but it is not something which can be attempted by a revolutionary act. As you can see, there are other principles, like solidarity, the need for a democratic republic and equal participation in all sections of society. This is what is meant by Democracy. It has active participation and control. Within the Social Democrat movement, there are two different positions regarding the role of the state. One side wants a reduction of the functions of the state, and feels that society and the economy should be built on the basis of small cooperatives. On the other side we find the position that the state should be democratised, social and economic responsibilities gradually increased. Along this line of thought, the state should play an active part in the construction of a new society. On the other side of the chart we find Communism, Marxism or Leninism. As I have already said, it is sometimes called Scientific Socialism which means that Socialism is regarded as a necessary result from the laws of historical development. This also has been termed "Historical Materialism", and I have tried to outline on the bottom corner of page 76 the main principles of Historical Materialism as it was basically formulated by Stalin, after Lenin. There are definite stages of socio-economic development which are inevitable. The first Ancient Society, can be regarded as a Communist Society in a sense. This is followed by the stages of Slavery, Feudalism, Capitalism, Socialism and Communism in that order. Today there are discussions in some of the socialist/communist countries of the European Block on the question of whether they are in the process of going on to the stage of Communism. It is one of the principles of Communism that a new society should be reached by revolution, and revolution is an act of force by the oppressed class. The avant- garde party should play a leading role in this revolution, because, as Lenin said, "workers only have Trade Union consciousness". By Trade Union consciousness it was meant that workers are interested in acquiring better wages, better housing, better education for their children, but they lack the revolutionary consciousness which is regarded as necessary for the revolutionary overthrow of existing political orders. Lenin claimed that the worKers need and nave to tollow the leadership of the intellectual and professional revolutionaries,'which means the party. This is very interesting insofar as the political system of communism usually is described as "Dictatorship of the Proletariat" To me this means that the ultimate political power should be vested in the workers themselves. Decision making processes within the Party are based on the principle of "Democratic Centralism" which means that decision from the 'top" are binding and not to be questioned. There is the principle of "Proletarian Internationalism", to support the leading role of the Soviet Union as the first socialist country within the international revolutionary movement. Finally I come to the most difficult question: in the Communist ideology the State is regarded as the instrument of the economically dominant class, and therefore the State should wither away after the establishment of a classless society. I may ask one question in this context - I sometimes wonder that after more than 60 years of socialism in the Soviet Union, we still find the State in existence, stronger than ever.

A COMPARATIVE APPROACH TO DIFFERENT POLITICAL PHILOSOPHIES (Chart p.77) I now come to the comparison between the different political philosophies. We have to use the terms Liberalism, Conservatism, Democratic Socialism and Communism. it is sometimes difficult nowadays to know exactly what is meant, because we have parties which are called Liberal Parties (for example the Liberal Democratic Party of Japan) which are very conservative. Sometimes we find "Communist Parties" which have developed into parties of a more democratic socialist brand. We find "Revolutionary Parties", as in Mexico for instance, which long ago abandoned the revolutionary aspect. It is therefore difficult to use the different terms and to attach a definite understanding to these terms, and I think it is necessary to again outline in catch words the main fundamental differences between these different streams of political philosophies and thinking. I have tried to do so in three main chapters: Society, Economy and Political System. I will start with Liberalism. Liberalism In society, Liberalism calls for personal freedom, but generally this has not meant more than freedom of property ownership. Liberalism calls for human rights and civil liberties, it wants equal rights. Equal rights means the equality of everybody before the law. Liberalism has opted for a pluralism, an open exchange of ideas. There is a fundamental belief that by having an open exchange of different ideas and interests within a society, this will more or less automaticallv lpad to a natural harmony. Libsralism therefore does not believe in contradictory or deeply opposing interests within a society, it believes that this natural harmony can be reached by an open exchange of ideas and communication. Liberalism has opted for rationality. Liberalism is a philosophy of the brain; it also calls for the emancipation of the individual. It is pragmatic, not doctrinaire. In Economy, private ownership of the means of production is the fundamental principle of Liberalism, and free market competition and movement of labour. That means that the workers should be free to move to those places where they can find work. People who have no property should be able to move where they 6an best sell their labour. Liberalism is prepared to introduce welfare measures, but these should be limited. The role of trade unions should be restricted to wage and salary negotiations only and perhaps include the question of working conditions, but trade unions should not have any political say. State intervention and economic regulations are limited, which means that there should be some laws guiding the economic system, especially the law guaranteeing the ownership of means of production, but there should not be too many laws as far as social regulations and other restrictions are concerned. Liberalism always sees the danger of bureaucratic restrictions of the economy, and I think it is one of the main reasons why Liberalism calls for the limitation of economic and social regulations. Social and public services should be undertaken by private organisations as far as possible. Only if private organisations are unable to do this on economically viable-terms, the state should come in. I think I have made it quite clear, for instance, that this could mean that schools are not provided by the Government, but are established by private owners, who could charge heavy school fees. I think this system will definitely lead to a large difference in the chances for education. It probably should be discussed later on what this concept implies for the realisation and definition of equality. As a consequence of free market competition, Liberalism has opted for free trade internationally. The Political System is the parliamentary republic with multi-party competition. There are controls and limitations of state powers of government. State power should be limited as far as possible. There is a preference for bicameralism and federalism and for the separation of power. I would like to refer to the writings of Adam Smith, one of the main contributors of Liberalism, who names three tasks to be performed by the state. First the state should protect the group from outside violence, that means maintain a military force; secondly, the state should protect the individual from injustice and oppression of their fellow citizen, which means a police and judiciary system, and thirdly, erect and maintain those institutions and public works that are of great advantage to society and which cannot be done on a profitable basis by individuals. Conservatism Coming now to Conservatism, it is sometimes difficult to make a clear distinction between Liberalism and Conservatism: we find that at least as far as the economy is concerned, they seem to be very close. (Wh~reas the concepts of society seem to have a much closer relationship between Liberalism and Democratic Socialism). Conservatism, as I have already said, is a status-quo orientation, rapid changes are regarded as negative. Conservatism aims at the maintenance of traditional order, status and power. There is also the call for freedom/human rights, but controlled and limited by state guidance. Because of human nature, it seems essential that personal freedom must be restricted and controlled. Within this context, we find the central role for the family and for religion. In Economy, we find private ownership and free market competition, but Conservatives feel free to ask for state intervention against outside competition if necessary, to establish and defend a strong national economy. To give an example, the Conservative Government in the United States has made it quite clear that on the one side, in order to regenerate a strong national economy, they are trying to free the economy as much as possible from state intervention, even social legislation should be restricted to cut down on government spending and on the other hand they are prepared to protect their economy against outside competition by customs, tax and other regulations. There are restrictions of labour organisation and movement, because the labour movement should not become too strong. There should be no state participation and involvement in economy, it is basically the maintenance of order by law which guarantees ownership, security and currency that is regarded as the principal responsibility of the state. Then we find that after a Socialist Government, we often see re-privatisation of state controlled sectors of the economy. There is one good example in Great Britain, where we have a cycle of changes between Labour Party government and the

Conservative government, and we often find that when the Labour Party has nationalised part of the economy, for instance the steel sector or the automobile production industry, the Conservative governments, now under Mrs Thatcher, are trying to readvertise and sell some of these nationalised industries back to the private sector. In the Political System we also find a multi-party, constitutional parliamentary demoracy. But then, one of the main differences between Liberalism and Conservatism has to be emphasized: where Liberalism tries to limit state powers as much as possible, Conservatism calls for a strong state and Government. There should be centralised powers and a unified central state. Conservatism encourages individual initiative, but is also prepared, by timely reform, to stop or change abuses of the individual freedom, There is an emphasis on the value of traditional institutions. Conservatism regards property as an expression of individuality. Conservatism sees a need for a strong police and military, and we also find a preference for "strong men" in some of the conservative parties. Leadership has priority over political philosophies. I mentioned this "ideology of non-ideology". You will find Conservatism often not prepared to elaborate on a very detailed party programme: instead it concentrates on the leadership of the strong man within the political movement. There is also another very important fact: democracy should not be applied to the economy and social institutions because the Conservatives .are afraid that too much democracy means too much discussion; too many complicated processes of decision making will limit the efficiency of the economy or the state institutions. Democratic Socialism I now come to Democratic Socialism. In Society, personal freedom schould be embedded within social solidarity. That means a man should be entitled to his personal freedom, unless he uses this personal freedom against his fellows in society. Democratic Socialisrhi places a high value on human rights and dignity of man. It calls for organisational pluralism and freedom of association, which means that everybody and all classes of society should be allowed to form associations, such as trade unions, parties and other bodies, in order to express their political interest. Socialism is regarded as an open society. Socialism is a persistent task and not a fixed set of ideological positions, Whereas, Liberalism defines equal rights only in the sense that everybody should be equal before the law, Democratic Socialism interprets equal rights in a much broader sense: not only should everybody be equal before the law, they should also have equal opportunities. In education, for instance, there should not be a great disparity in schooling, everybody should have access to the best schools available, and according to his/her capabilities. The aim is not to bring everybody to the same level, but to support the individual to help him/her get to the highest level, to develop the individual's potential to the fullest extent. The Economy is mixed, with on the one side private ownership of means of production as the main feature, and on the other hand cooperatives or communal ownership as well as the possibility of state or national ownership and control of essential sectors like minerals, energy, banks and major industries. Market competition is the main factor in the steering of the economy; however, a certain amount of state control and planning of investment is also possible, but this excludes the planning of prodjction. That is the main difference as compared to central-planning economies in Communist States, because in this system you will find products being planned even to the extent that the number of screws and bolts to be produced per year the number and different makes of shoes are centrally decided. Under Democratic Socialism, these decisions should be made by the companies on the strength of market competition, and any planning should be restricted to investment: the decision of where capital should be used to establish new industries and where these industries should be located. Democratic Socialism has a strong interest in controlling monopolies, because monopoly companies have the power to undermine market competition. There is also a strong call for state intervention, in the form of laws, tax regulations, financial planning and social security measures. Social Democracy aims at a social welfare state, which means that the state should take responsibility for those who cannot take care of themselves. Democracy should not be restricted to political institutions and processes only, but extended to all spheres of society, especially the economy. Democratization of the economy would mean that not only the private owners should have a say in economic decision making, but the workers through their trade unions and institutions of co-determination or labour councils, should also participate. The freedom of association for trade unions is guaranteed, as the trade unions are regarded as important social institutions who are invited to participate in decision making and control of the economy. The Political System is based on a multi-party democracy, where the parties play a most important role as a means of political expression and political education of the electorate. As already mentioned, democratic principles should not be restricted to the political system but rule all social institutions and the economy. Democratic participation does not only mean participation during elections but also in decision making on different levels. In Democratic Socialism we have a demand for a strong and active administration, based on the rule of the law. Democratic Socialism is guided by three fundamental values: Freedom, Justice and Solidarity. These must be transformed into day-to-day action. There is one main feature which divides Social Democrats from Liberals: whereas Liberals hope that the pluralist exchange of ideas will lead to natural harmony, Democratic Socialism recognizes fundamental social conflicts and differences within a society. That is the principal meaning of Democracy: to find peaceful means of solution for social and political conflicts. If we realize that there are political conflicts of interests within a society, Democracy means the establishment of institutions and processes whereby these conflicts can be solved peacefully, probably not for ever but at least it provides a permanent process to reach periods of stability through a balance of interest. Socialism, in the sense of Democratic Socialism, is not one ideology, it accepts different motives. I think I have made it clear that these motives can lead from Marxism to religious beliefs and ethics. There is no definite picture of the future. Communism Communism, in Society, places the Collective first. The personal and human rights are under the over-all control of the Party, because the Party is responsible for the education of the new mankind, and personal freedom as well as personal and human rights must be restricted. There is a firm ideological orientation and a strong belief in positive historical development. This is what has been termed "Historical Materialism". As long as you hold this strong belief that historical development will inevitably lead to the next stage of soclo-economic order, the position and wisdom of the Party which claims to fulfil the objective needs of the historical process cannot be questioned, by anybody. This Party is always right I In Economy we have state ownership, sometimes referred to as "state capitalism" by critics. We have central planning of production and of the volume of products, we also have a centrally controlled and organised distribution sector and there is no private trade other than small vegetable markets and so on. There is public control of all transport systems, and you will not find many private cars in communist countries. Trade unions are under the control of the party; they do not have an autonomous function, but are the instruments of productivity and social recreation. There is no open unemployment, but there are restrictions on movement and choice of professions. I know that this has been questioned by some of you who have seen the unemployed roaming the streets of Moscow. But I think we must realize that political systems of this kind make the claim that they cannot have unemployment, because everyone who is prepared to work, can have a job, even if it is less attractive and less well paid. On the other hand we have to realise that income disparity sometimes is lower than normal in Western industrialised capitalist states, but the average income in the Western states is sometimes much higher than some of the highest incomes in Comm un ist states. The Political System is the one-party system, because once a Communist Party of this brand of Marxism/Leninism has gained power, it is not normally prepared to step down again or to expose itself to a multi-party competition. The ultimate control is vested in the party, the worker's party. There is also a central, strong government and administration under the dominance of the personality of party leaders like Stalin, Mao and Kim il Sung. It is very interesting to note that as far as the concept of strong governments and strong leaders is concerned, there are some very strong relationships and similar thoughts between Conservatism and Communism. A concept which is even more accentuated in Fascism. We have democratic centralism in the party, which means binding decisions from the top. If the Central Committee's decision is questioned by the Central Committee itself, and it is changed, the Party in all its rank and file have to promptly follow suit. The parliament is basically an institution to sanction party decisions. It is an institution of acclamation to party decisions or, on the other hand, an institution for the production of laws but in a more technical sense. Then there is another critical area: the dominant and privileged role of political and bureaucratic classes which, in the Soviet Union for instance, has been termed "Nomenclature". As you are certainly aware, this new political and bureaucratic class has certain well established privileges, such as higher incomes, better housing and transport, access to better supplies through a special system of stores, access to a different quality of recreational facilities, in some cases permission to travel to foreign countries, and so on. I now come to the crucial question of the "Dictatorship of the Proletariat", which is emphasized in most discussions of Communist ideology. Referring to the original meaning of this term in Marx' philosophy, we must realize that in his lifetime, democracies in the modern sense barely existed. We might have found different forms of minority rule, which Marx called "dictatorship". For instance; the "Dictatorship of the Bourgeoisie", a minority, over the Proletariat, the majority of the population. According to Marx, this "Dictatorship of the Bourgeoisie" should be toppled through revolution, the "Dictatorship of the Proletariat" established for a certain period of transformation of society towards Socialism and

Communism, which would ultimately mean an end to the state and antagonistic forms of government, to be replaced by the "Rule of the Equal". As we have seen, because of the special role Lenin gave to the avant-garde Party, it is nowadays generally the party, the political and bureaucratic class which leads the state for the proletariat. We therefore don't have a "Dictatorship of the Proletariat", but a "Dictatorship for the Proletariat" - not a political system for a period of 'revolutionary transformation, but the ideological backbone of unlimited powers vested in the Party. Political Systems in Africa We now make the big step to the analysis and discussion of political systems in Africa: the Multi-Party System, the One-Party System and the Military Regime.I should start with some remarks, on the bottom left-hand cornerof the paper (see p.79). I do not attempt'this analysis of political systems in Africa by making use of or judging by the political philosophies which we discussed for Europe: Liberalism, Conservatism, Social Democracy or Democratic Socialism, and Communism. I think the essential questions in the analysis of political systems in Africa are as follows: how far do these systems contribute to development; how far are they able to guarantee social and political participation; how far are they able to regulate conflicts and by what means; and how far are they able to guarantee human rights? Multi-Party System Coming to the multi-party system, I must re-emphasize that I am not essentially talking about Botswana; however, there are only a few examples of multi-party systems in Africa, and Botswana was one of the first. In fact, I think there are only two such systems in Africa which have maintained it up to now. In Senegal. it was not until the late seventies that we found something like a re-establishment of a formal MultiParty System. In Nigeria, it was after the generals stepped down, and we will have to wait for the next general election in 1983 to see what happens, because if you read the newspapers, you will find that the question of whether the military will or must step in again is still under discussion. We also have cases, in Ghana for instance, where we have changes of military intervention and civil governments. We do not know if in the future Ghana may have a Multi- Party System again or a One-Party System or perhaps something very different. I think one of the main features we have to consider is that parties in Multi-Party Systems in Africa are mainly national alliances, not class or ideological parties in the sense that we discussed for Europe. I think Multi-Party Systems offer some advantages, and I'm sure my list is not complete. Multi-Party Systems offer alternatives: they allow articulation, expression and organisation of different political views, competition, political competition and personal competition for leadership, as well as, in principle, a better control of power. But there is one crucial test for the Multi-Party System: the opposition party winning the election or even the suspicion that it may win, and the acceptance of this change of government. I think there is one example not very far from Botswana,in Lesotho, where in 1971 the opposition parties were expected to win the elections, and as a result the MultiParty System came to an abrupt halt. I think they now face a situation close to civil war, all because of this decision made in 1971. We have essential preprequisites for a Multi-Party System and one of the first and main ones is the acceptance of the role of the opposition. That means opposition should be integrated into the political system as far as possible. I know that sometimes we find cases where the opposition is regarded or even defines itself as fundamental opposition which is not prepared to maintain the political institutions as they were established, but wants to make a complete change. I agree that it would be very difficult, under these circumstances, to integrate the opposition into a political system; but I think that as long as this position is not obvious and clear, an attempt should still be made to integrate this opposition into the political system as far as possible. This means that the opposition should certainly have access to information. If the opposition is represented in parliament, it should have the right to be informed by the government itself. It should have access to government information materials. There is one other essential prerequisite: internal party democracy. A party can only establish democracy if there is open discussion and decision making, if there is free competition for positions and for the nomination of candidates. There should be open, two-way communication with the grass roots. Furthermore, I think there is another essential prerequisite: the responsibility of the representatives, that means the MPs, etc., to report and express the views of their constituencies. There definitely are some problems and dangers. One of the first, I would say, is the development of a one party dominant system which functions not only by majority, for instance in parliament, but also by control and domination of all political and social institutions. A situation like this does not allow the expression of opposition, in fact it is going in the direction of a One-Party state. There is a danger of tribal or ethno-regional bases of party organisation. I think if we look at Nigeria in the 1960s, we will see that this has been one of the main causes for the military intervention and unrest which occurred in Nigeria in the early sixties. There is also a tendency that these parties may develop into elitist or patronage parties with limited representation of the rural poor or the workers. It is the elite which is represented within the highest ranks of the parties, with hardly anybody from the other social strata. There is also the danger of a domination of administration over party decision. I shall not talk too much on this aspect because we shall have the pleasure of Professor Sharma's lecture. One-Party System Coming now to the One-Party System in Africa which I think form an over-all majority in Africa, apart from the military regimes, I should say. One-Party Systems in most cases came after the abolishment of Multi-Party Systems either by legislation or by oppression of opposition, and in a few cases, by absolute electoral majority. For instance, if you look at the history of Tanzania, the TANU (now CCM) formed a One-party state because of its over-all majority during the elections in the early sixties. The other case is in Zambia, where President Kaunda expected that the UNIP would soon have an absolute majority through elections at the end of the sixties. But then he was faced by new opposition parties which evolved from the ruling party, and he was forced to introduce a One-Pirty System by legislation. There are some reasons given for the introduction of a One-Party System. First, it has been said that Multi-Party Systems are alien and unsuitable for Africa, because it has not developed class systems; it does have something called "African Democracy" and I agree that this is still in existence and vital. For instance, in Botswana there is the Kgotla System which is still a most important asset of the democratic process. But even there we are faced with the question of whether it will be good and far reaching enough for a modern National State. There is also the danger of tribal or ethno-regional parties and secessionist movements; there is no question that this danger exists in most African countries. There is also need for a strong and united state to cope with development challenges. The One-Party System is regarded by some scholars as an emergency organisation for development, because they suspect there might otherwise be a danger of disunity and ineffective discussions by the opposition. I think this is one of the main arguments and you will find that in many cases the request for a One- Party System is based on the argument that opposition only leads to disunity, to discussions and not to decisions which are necessary for the development process. It is also said that one party is a better agent for mobilization for development. If you look at the ideological orientation, at least for the first decade, it has been mostly African Socialism. Nowadays, especially those countries which came to independence after a long, intensive liberation struggle, have parties which have opted for what is called Scientific Socialism, for instance the MPLA in Angola, which is now called the Worker's Party, and the FRELIMO in Mozambique. The economic systems are not similar at all, they are different. They range from capitalist/private like in Kenya to a mixed economy like in Zambia and a socialist or state owned economy like Tanzania. I now come to a very important point: I would like to stress that the One-Party State should not necessarily be regarded as undemocratic. Because if we define democracy as organisation of political participation, I think basically it depends on the internal party democracy and electoral systems, for instance the question of primaries, whether democracy can be established under a One-Party System. I think that if a party's internal process of decision making and discussion is democratic, at least you cannot regard this One-Party System as essentially undemocratic. There is a tendency towards bureaucratisation of party organisation and oligarchisation of power structure, especially if the party relies on state funds for its organisation. There is also a tendency of development of patronage systems and unequal distribution of wealth and income in favour of the political and administrative state class. Because there is no competition between government and the opposition (i.e. an opposition prepared to form another government), there is basically one small section of the political and administrative state class which has really taken possession of the power and wealth of the state. There are internal power struggles and competition often dominated by ethnic or tribal rivalries and cohesions. I think this is a very interesting feature because as we have seen, one of the first arguments in favour of a One-Party State has been the tendency towards ethnic and tribal parties, parties which have their main support from one region or tribe. We must therefore realize that even within one party we often find very intensive struggles and competition based on ethnic cohesion.

Sometimes, or perhaps I should say generally, we don't find any difference between party, government, administration and also other social institutions. This leads to a situation of limited control and checks and balances of power. It also leads to another dangerous situation, because sometimes it is not clear who has the responsibility to make decisions, who has the responsibility to implement these decisions and who has the responsibility to control, and this is a mixture which can lead to a very unstable situation. I must also mention another fact, because we have been asked to be frank and open: the development in some of these countries is often much hampered by corruption, misappropriation and misallocation of national resources. Military Regime I now come to the Military Regime. It is very difficult to define one common feature or case for military intervention. It has occurred against any form of government and with completely different goals, so I quote "Every case has to be regarded as a unique combination of circumstances". This does not say much, but I think we have to realize that it is impossible to given one explanation for all the Military Regimes which are in existence in Africa or Latin America. However, there are some explanations which apply to many cases. Let us first look at internal military causes. In the centre, the so-called Corporate Interests, i.e. the military reacts in-defence of or for the expansion of its own interests and privileges. It wants more and better arms and sometimes, if the politicians are reluctant to grant these requests, the military intervene. There are questions of hierarchy: there was the first coup of the generals, the second coup of the colonels, the third coup of the lieutenants who were overthrown by the corporals. This shows that there is sometimes competition, rivalry and different perceptions of the role of the military between the different ranks of the military. Sometimes we have ethnic rivalries because there may be military units recruited from different ethnic tribes, and this aJso leads to clashes.'Sometimes it is also contributed to by training abroad. I think however, that it is basically the disposition of arms. It seems very simple but it is realistic: if you have them, you use them. Some scholars have defined the structural deficits and decadence of the political system as the main cause. The military regards politics as dirty; accuses that there is too much tribalism, corruption and inefficiency within the established political institution. In some cases the military intervenes because of revolutionary ideologies; for instance, this was the case in Ghana with the coup of Mr Rawlings. It is also said that the military may be acting as the military expression of the middle classes. It is very difficult to define what is meant by middle classes, but I think we can say that it is that class which is unable to express and articulate its interests within the political system the way it exists, so that they form a coalition with the Army to overthrow the existing poltical order. In some cases we find that it is strictly foreign intervention. It is very interesting to note that for some time Military Regimes have been very positively regarded in political analysis. I think you must be aware of the fact that in some cases, even today, governments like that of the United States are still prepared to accept Military Regimes because these are regarded as a guarantee of stability and as a stable force against Communism. Even in the past, especially in the sixties, political scientists have seen some positive advantages of Military Regimes. They were regarded as a guarantee of stability, as the only modern organisation within a society, as an institution of technical efficiency and rationality, and this is considered a precondition for development. I think these political scientisti were very critical of the political parties in Africa as far as administration was concerned, and they regarded the military as a strong and modern institution which should lead the nation to development and also to further national identity and unity. It is quite clear to me that this analysis was an overestimation of both the capabilities of the military and the resulting stability, because we have to realize that the military has to rely on the administration, the state apparatus. We find this combination of military and civil service, because the military itself does not know how civil service regulations work and therefore has to rely on the public service left over from the previous government. I think this is one of the main features: the military leading to an artificial equilibrium, the freezing of power struggles and of social or political development, without any long term solution. This breeds opposition and resistance because this stability is only temporary and artificial, not structural. It is very interesting to note that in most cases it is the military who steps down: not because of positive results of military rule, but because they just don't know what to do. They lack political answers and solutions and are deficient in political orientation. As I have already said, the power struggle is only frozen during a period of military intervention. We find what is known as a vicious circle: a Military Regime followed by civil rule and back to Military Regime again. I think the case of Ghana is a very good example. It is also an example of how these continuous changes from military to civil rule and back again, will to a large extent destroy a nation and its economy. 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COMMENTS & ANSWERS Historical Origins of Political Philosophies and Movements COMMENT: Mr Chairman, / have a comment or a question: can we say the election in a One-Party State is the same as in a Multi-Party State? / have in mind the fact that although we do have primar/es in a One-Party State, we are choosing between personalities, not policies - we are all for one policy. To me it appears there is no alternative policy to choose from, we merely choose from personalities to find if Candidate A can perform the same policy as vigorously as Candidate B, but we are not choosing from differentpolicies. (would like Dr Adam to comment on this. ANSWER: I think you are right in principle, it is basically a decision between personalities. But I would like to stress the point that personalities make policies and even withinone party, there are different political views. Even within a One- Party State, it depends on who is in the leading position to decide what direction this one party is going to take. I think as far as that goes, by choosing personalities, you also decide policies. But even if we are talking in general terms, we would find Multi-Party Systems where all the different parties within this system are very close in principle, and not at all representing alternative policies, they might differ slightly in emphasis, strategies, etc., but in many cases it is the leading personalities who set the demarcation lines. In both systems, the Multi- Party and the One-Party System, we can find "ideological" parties, parties with a clear policy profile, under the dominance of leading figures. It depends on the specific situation. COMMENT, Thank you, Mr Chairman. / think / quite agree with Dr Adam that within a One-Party System we can have different points of view. Taking that approach, what would you consider are the differences within a Socialist party like in Angola, where there is civil strife precisely because one party wants to be dominant, and one could say that this civil war in Angola is precisely because there is no allowance. ff it is just a question of no Multi-Party System, why couldn't they allow those political parties under the same umbrella, or is it because they are diametrically opposed in policies, very different from each other? ANSWER: I agree with you, if I go into the analysis of special cases of specific countries. I am fully aware of the fact that normally a One-Party System does not allow this expression of different views. There is often a lack of internal discussion. Sometimes these are very monopolistic organisations which are prepared to maintain and keep their specific power situation. In the case mentioned by you, Angola, it seems there is indeed a very intensive power stuggle within the MPLA, far exceeding the expression of different views during internal party discussion. It seems to be fundamental for the type of policy which will dominate the future, how closely the country should be linked to the Soviet Union and other Socialist States, or how much independence it should have from this main stream of "Scientific Socialism" Personally, I am fully in support of the Multi-Party System, but I was trying to prevent the conclusion that on the general level of analysis, One-Party Systems are necessarily regarded as undemocratic. There can be a certain measure of democracy. On the other hand, if a Multi-Party System works well, with the different parties representing different policies and exercising internal party democracy to the full extent, then this type of political system deserves our full support. COMMENT: Mr Chairman, the heading of the item here is discussions of political systems. Perhaps it suggests we should confine ourselves to what has been said by Dr Adam, but / would like, first of all, Mr Chairman, to touch briefly by way of comment on wha t His Excellency said when he opened the seminar. Since what he said dovetails very well with the analysis of Dr Adam of the various political systems, I want to recall His Excellency's remark as regards the individual rights to be heard irrespective of how disagreeable the point of view might be. I think if one listened closely to His Excellency's remarks - not so much his criticism of the opposition parties and so on - it merely challenged us to realize that even amongst ourselves, we should be able to feel free to express ourselves in our own circle, no matter how critical some people may feel about what we say; because in this way, I think we can solidify our cohesion, our solidarity can be strenghtened, we can take stock of our own selves, feel free to criticize ourselves in order to agree. This, I think, is very important, and also to know that elections are intended to give people the right to decide as to whom they accept and whom they don 't accept. / will leave it at that, Mr Chairman. Now coming to Dr Adam's comparative analysis of the different systems, I think he did a very fine job, particularly to expose us to these things that we've heard about but sometimes don't know what it really means. We speak of our own system here as a Multi-Party Democratic System, and others will speak about Democratic Socialism, you name it. Each one of us claims their own system is the right one. When you come to compare, you find that in certain cases there is a tendency to impress forcefully upon people that they should accept a system which perhaps, upon examination might be found to be devoid of that basic content of Democracy that other people are advocating. For instance, when you talk about the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, some of us really don 't understand what it stands for. Is it a clique of dictators trying to enforce a system upon the Proletariat, or a genuine feeling that the Proletariat is entitled to a certain degree of dispensation of justice, of all that is good, and that they must therefore have some-one as a custodian of all that is considered to be fair for this Proletariat [who might have felt that the Bourgeoisie have all along deprived them of everything good]. What if this is what it really was intended to mean? Could we say, for instance, that the system is Poland as it is now, or in Russia, is a Dictatorship aiming at the security of the interest of the Proletariat, or that it is throttling this Proletariat to prevent them from expressing themselves freely? Could we here in Botswana advocate so much? People must feel free - it doesn't matter if what they say is not accepted by others. Thank you sir.

ANSWER: Thank you. I think I have to add some remarks on the origin of the term "Dictatorship of the Proletariat". It was used by Marx himself to express the political aspirations of the majority of the population. This majority, about 80%, was deprived from political participation, whereas the minority, about 20%, of the owners of industrial properties,was exercising what Marx called the "Dictatorship of the Bourgeoisie". Through revolutionary transformation, the majority should come to power and establish a "Dictatorship of the Proletariat" over the former ruling classes. We have to again recall that in Marx' time, Democracy in the modern sense hardly existed, and I think Marx intended to express the need of majority rule, not support a dictatorship in the sense of a lawless tyranny of the one or the few. However, it is indeed a difficult and sometimes misleading terml In my paper I tried to make it clear that Lenin had reduced at least the scope of action of the workers, because he stated that the workers don't really have the revolutionary consciousness and so are not able to form the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. Therefore, it is necessary to have a revolutionary party acting on behalf of the Proletariat, I think this is the conflict: Do the workers or the Proletariat feel represented by the people in power, the political party, or do they still feel dominated, ruled and oppressed. I think that, for instance, in the Soviet Union and in Poland, it is not the workers who make the decisions. It is not a free association of the working population, as Marx had described Socialism. They might even have a more limited access to the control of power than most of the workers in Western Democratic states. I think this is the basic problem: the state claims to take priority over the needs and interests of the workers, but they are cut off from political participation. In this context, the term "Dictatorship of the Proletariat" has led to a misconception. It is now used as a cover for reality, and I suspect that if we could talk to workers from the Soviet Union, we would find that nobody believes in the Dictatorship of the Proletariat. I think they would be happy if they had the right to participate in democracy, even to have a chance to choose between different parties, different personalities. However, if you look at the polls for the one party, it is sometimes 99.4%. This does not mean there really is freedom but rather that there is a very strong control on the freedom of participation. COMMENT: Sir, my first question is in fact a follow-up on a previous question on the primaries in the case of a One-Party System, and it concerns its President. usually in a One-Party System when primaries are conducted, the President himself stands as the sole candidate, and one wonders whether that means that he fears he may lose the elections, or he feels that he should not be contested in any way. One feels that is an unfair situation, where you expect your lieutenant to be contested but you yourself, as leader, do not want to be contested by anyone. The second question, Sir, concerns the different political systems. We are very grateful to Dr Adam, because such comparisons will help us whenever we move about addressing political meetings or even just in talking, we have been speaking without the proper knowledge of these systems. Sometimes you may go off on a tangent, and you miss the boat, or miss what you want to deliver to people. Looking at the systems as analysed in the paper, especially under political systems, I have noted that all of them - Liberalism, Conservatism and Democratic Socialism - have a Multi-Party System, but Communism has a One-Party System; maybe this is Marxism-made, there / stand to be corrected. The question is, if any party wants to come here and declare that a Marxistparty is the best party to run the country, does it follow that it will therefore immediately go for the One-Party System, or would it declare that it is the only party that can save Botswana from confusion? Does it follow that such a party will still have to adhere to the One-Party System? This is really a comment rather than a question, because / visited the East. You said you haven't been to the Soviet Union or Korea, but / did visit Korea as a delegate of Botswana to attend the 10th Party Congress. During that Congress, we watched them hold elections; what surprised us was that when they were in the process of electing, somebody would go to the mike and say "/ nominate so and so". Somebody would ask who agreed and they would all raise the red card, and the whole world was red. I recently attended a panel discussion, where our party was represented by Mr Magang; although sir, you were not talking specifically about Botswana, you will allow me to mention Dr Kenneth Koma: every time Dr Koma said something, his hatchet men sitting in front would all clap their hands. So I felt there must be a similarity with these people in North Korea because there the same thing happened. At the University here, when Dr Koma coughs, they applaud; if this is the system which is going to be introduced to this country, / think it is time for us, as Democratic Party Membership here, to go out and preach to the people that this system is bad. Thank you Mr Chairman. ANSWER: Thank you Sir. Coming to the question of whether the Communist Party must necessarily be in favour of a One-Party System: that is generally, but not necessarily the case. You find Communist parties like the one in Italy, now called "European Communist", going more into the direction of Democratic Socialism; there are deep frictions between the party of the Soviet Union and their Party over the question of Multi-Party System which they are in favour of.It is the same in France. I think there are some other countries with Communist parties that are even prepared to form coalition governments with other parties. In France we have a Communist party in coalition with a Socialist party, and Lthink these parties are prepared to step down if the electorate votes them out. However, generally speaking, I think Communist parties do try to stabilize the power situation and introduce the One-Party System. In the German Democratic Republic, (East Germany) for instance, we have a nominal Multi-Party System, but the Socialist (Communist) party is in effective control and command. If we look at the situation, we find that normally a Communist party at least has the goal of establishing a One-Party System as soon as possible. If you have to fulfil a historic mission, if you have to establish the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, you have to take measures against a possible backswing, you cannot allow to be voted out of power. To the question of Presidency. It is normally a very long and complicated process in One-Party States to select the candidate for presidential elections. There is sometimes intensified internal struggle within the leading ranks of this one party before a decision can be made, in some cases in participation with party bodies like the Central Committee. COMMENT: Mr Chairman, my first question, which concerned the role of the workers in the Communist party, has already been answered. The second question concerns the dangers of the Multi-Party System. Here we have the domination of administration over party policy, which is becoming one of our biggest problems in Botswana. How can we by-pass this problem in a Multi-Party System, or What can we do to try and alleviate it? Under a One-Party System, how far does this term "African Socialism " extend as far as we are at this present moment? And finally, this [too much publicized] "Scientific Socialism" - how far does this go as far as we are concerned in Botswana?

ANSWER: I think as far as this question of the danger of dominance of administration over the democratic political system is concerned, we shall have the chance to discuss it more intensively later on. It seems to be happening more frequently in MultiParty Systems that Politicians are voted out of power every few years, while the administration keeps its continuity. Thus, whoever is in the administration knows what to do whereas the politicians are still new to their jobs. Before they have read through the files and had time to become experts, they may be voted out of power again. Therefore I think it is very necessary in the Multi- Party System that the opposition has access to information as far as possible. At least as long as they are Members of Parliament, they should even have a chance to see some of the "secret files", so that they will know how Government is going, and they should be in a position to cope with the new challenge if there is a possibility that they might have to take over the government. Also, I think, it is very necessary to have a good working internal party democracy. The party must be able to formulate a policy and to control or influence its deputies in Parliament and Cabinet. They are expected to do both: express their own views but also fulfil the policy of the party. Normally, they are not elected merely as individuals, but as representatives of the party and of the party's policies. Furthermore, it is also necessary to support the Parliamentary decision-making process through special committees, supportive staff, better information and access to Government documents and sources. Another important aspect of political culture is the preparedness of civil servants to accept the leadership of the people. Civil servants are expected to be neutral, and ' think if they are advised to act in a certain direction, they must be prepared to carry out what they have been ordered to do by the top, even if they disagree personally, else they should resign. It is the politicians who are carrying the ultimate responsibility and stand for it. Sometimes you find that the administration, because of their larger knowledge of all details, tries to exercise its own decisions and does not like interference from the policy makers. As far as the other question, African Socialism and Scientific Socialism, I feel I cannot answer this question in one minute - we must have a one week Seminar to answer this one. There are so many different designs of African Socialism, but the basic principle is that it has been claimed that Africa has not developed a Class System comparative to the ones in Europe. There are still systems of common, public or community ownership of the land. In fact, people react much differently in the political area from the way they reacted in 19th century Europe. However, the question is if you can establish a modern socialist system based on old tradition. In Tanzania, it is Ujamaa - together like one family; but as far as we know now the usage of a family oriented solidarity for the national development has not been too successful. Scientific Socialism I regard as just an ideological catchphrase to cover political realities. I don't believe in Scientific Socialism; politics are the expression of interest, not of "Science". There is no objective reality. We have our own perceptions of reality, everybody sees it differently, and there is no such thing as "objective reality". Thus I can't picture a party claiming to fulfil an "objective" goal, and construct a new society according to Scientific Socialism. If somebody makes this claim, it just means he is trying to stabilise the position of power. COMMENT: Dr Adam, in reply to a question by the previous speaker, you said that the opposition must even have access to "secret files". What if it does not look like the opposition is the kind that is capable of being an alternate government? ANSWER: I feel,Sir, that this is a very difficult situation, and I know you are talking about Botswana. Therefore, I also must talk about Botswana. I have the impression it will be very difficult to comply with this demand as there seems to be a tendency on the part of the opposition to continue its accusations and claims even when they know better. Thus, I have heard the BNF claim that the government should nationalize the BMC and I cannot believe that they really don't know that the BMC is fully Government owned and controlled. It really is a difficult question if you have an irresponsible opposition in Parliament. On the other hand, who is to decide what opposition is irresponsible? This is a very sensitive question, and I think it is a question of the political culture of a nation: how far an opposition is prepared to maintain certain institutions, is prepared to cooperate as long as the electorate does not vote it into power, and on the other hand, the readiness of the ruling party to accept the change after being voted out of power. I can only hope that your Party can help build this political culture in Botswana, and I think a policy of open information to establish confidence in the institutions and processes of democracy, is a very important factor. COMMENT: You have basically given us your specialised knowledge of Europe and its political systems. Coming to Africa, I think you have your own views, particularly in relation to the One-Party System. Under Communism, you have a One-Party System which is really controlled from the top, what you called the Dictatorship of the Proletariat, on the basis that the Proletariat has to be controlled for the purpose of the development of the country. Isn't this the same philosophy that is used by African political parties which adopt the One-Party System on the basis that a Multi-Party System might be ethnically based in order to mobilize the people. We need one party instead of too many parties, because otherwise development will be delayed by the opposition 's talking and talking. Isn't this basically a socialist type of ideology, even though you may term it an African type of Democracy? I say this because in your paper, you indicate that one of the justifications of the One-Party System is the fact that the MultiParty System is a strange phenomena in Africa. When we had discussions recently, one of the panels insisted that Africa, and particularly Botswana, requires a Marxist type of political party in order to develop to any extent. In a similar way, it is just like the Communist party in Russia; the people at the top remain there forever and indications are, even in Africa, that those who adopt the One-Party System in fact tend to stay in power because there is no question of elimination by way of free elections. The Democracy that I'm sure you are talking about here, within one political system, is not necessarily the national Democracy based on the free electoral system of the people, but a Democracy within the structure of the party itself. The electorate is merely presented with candidates who, as you say, may have been democratically elected, but the electorate itself is not provided with the choice of competing policy systems. ANSWER: I think I must agree with your analysis because that is definitely the case in most of the countries which have opted for the One-Party System. They say they are going for development mobilisation but we should realize it is really power they are after, because they are afraid to lose it; those who have opted for a One-Party System want to maintain a certain power structure and I think in this sense it is difficult to call it a Socialist approach, in spite of any ideological reflections. If you look at the economic system, you will find all sorts of systems, from private ownership to mixed eco- nomy and state ownership. As you said, however, it does not depend on the type of ownership as to who has access to the national resources, but on the control of the state power. You will find, even in Africa, One-Party States who claim they are prepared to fulfil the needs of the majority of the people, but in fact are only serving a minority (the top leadership and so on). Just recently, the Chama Cha Mapinduzi in Tanzania had its Party Congress, and more than 1 500 delegates stood up and claimed the party is not the party of the people and only a minority of potiticians and civil servants are enjoying the fruits of deveLopment. President Nyerere managed to be the spokesman of this opposition within the party, something like the Cultural Revolution in China. The basic question is: who is making the decisions about the use of the national resources? In a private capitalist system, this is done by the private owners of the industries. Sometimes, in a mixed system, this is limited by state control, where the mineral resources are owned by the Government, and can only be used after lengthy negotiations with the Ministry of Mineral Resources, and according to decisions by Parliament. In a Socialist system, according to Marx, it should be the workers themselves who decide. In effect, we find the situation where the planning units which are controlled by the party, make decisions about the use of national resources without even consulting the workers. I think this is the basic problem, how the political systems organize the decision making on the use of the available national resources. Also, I think the system of checks and balances between private ownership on the one hand and state control on the other, is probably the one most likely to come close to a solution whereby the people in large parts of the country are able to enjoy the fruits of development. COMMENT: Thank you, Mr Chairman. It seems Socialism [Communism] has gained popularity in developing countries today, especially in the newly developed countries, and I would like to know from Dr Adam what could be the reason / Is it that the Russians are selling their ideology better than the West? Socialism, as we have seen in Africa, hasn't had a very good development record and yet more countries are choosing to go Socialist. The last question is probably to the floor: if Botswana chose to go Socialist, what would be our development progress today - would it be the same, better or worse? ANSWER: I think the question of why so many countries respond favourably to Socialist ideology and so on is basically the result of a mistake made by countries which claimed to be Democratic: obviously, we have not been prepared to support liberation struggles or the decolonisation process as we should have if the West had kept its own goals of Democracy fully responsible and viable. I think if you look at the African countries who gained independence after a long liberation struggle, you will find they had to rely on support of arms from the Eastern Block. I think even countries like Angola and Mozambique would like to have greater freedom of political mobility nowadays, but they are tied to the close relationship between the liberation movements and the Soviet' Block. We know that the Socialist countries do not have a good development record. Even the Soviet Union, after 60 years of development, is still not able to feed its people. I think we have to take into account the fact that the Soviet Union has had to fight two wars: after the Revolution and the Civil War, which was part of the First World War, they had the Second World War. However, we should realise that the system just is not capable of fulfilling its goals. Some of the African countries probably chose a system which is sometimes labelled "Socialism" but again are trying to defend and stabilize a certain power situation. You can do that by claiming you are acting for

Marxist Scientific Socialism and so on, because then your position and decisions cannot be questioned - you always represent the objective truth. For some, obviously, Socialism does not mean more than state control of the economy, as a means to enlarge the potential for political patronage and privileges. Coming to the question of Botswana, how developed it would be if it had opted for a Socialist system: I just read an analysis, not on Botswana specifically but rather a comparison between the development results of the Socialist States, the One-Party States and the Multi-Party States (like Botswana). I didn't agree with the whole analysis but quite agreed with the main conclusion: the Multi-Party type of Government, political and economic system had the best results. On the other hand, we have to be cautious and not jump to conclusions: sometimes you see a high rate of growth but this does not necessarily indicate development - besides growth, development also means economic, social and political participation of the people, social justice, equality and human rights. In principle, I think Botswana has chosen a type of development which has led to economic and social progress to a much larger extent than most of the other systems tried in Africa. COMMENT BY THE PRESIDENT: I think we have done very well to steer clear of all these "isms " because this way, we do not need to refer to definitions to see whether what we do is in accordance with Socialism or Communism or whatever "isms". / think if you look at these definitions, the nearest to our system is Democratic Socialism. Since we have a mixed economy, we have an interventionist economy. When we find individuals cannot manage, the Government steps in. We look after trade unions, we look after labour laws, we are trying to avoid exploitation of man by man. But I still think we are well advised to keep away from these "isms". COMMENT: Mr Chairman, mine is a very short question: when Dr Adam was responding to one of the previous questions, he said "MPs of the Government are free to express their individual opinions, but in the final analysis they should know that they should back the Government to propagate its policies". / agree with this, but / would pose a question: what happens in a set-up where you don't have an alternative opposition except for fundamental opposition, or in a set-up where you are likely to have a One-Party State declared by ballot box, not by decree? This is very likely to happen in this country. We are approaching that. Hence, what should be the role of an MP in Government, should he not take steps to check the balance on what Government is doing? COMMENT: Thank you, Mr Chairman, / also have a very brief question: / would like to know from DrAdam, following the analysis of the Military Regime and coupled to what is prevailing today in the rest of the world, particularly in Africa, whether he would not agree with me that perhaps the mushrooming of the Military Regime in Africa is just a result of lack of opposition parties, and the military's turn to assume the role of opposition parties. Or is it because of a lack of occupation on the part of the military itself during certain periods, so that as a result they find themselves idle and the only thing they can think of doing is to get involved with the running of Government. Finally, I would like to ask whether in a Multi-Party System like ours, which also employs an Army, you could anticipate all the possibilities of a Military Regime. Thank you very much.

COMMENT. Mr Chairman, I think mine is the shortest question. I would like to compare the system of two Super Powers: Communism as represented by the Soviet Union and Democracy as represented by the US. Now a few days ago, Mr Chairman, there was a report that as a result of the separation of powers in the US - the Executive, the Judiciary and the Legislature - President Reagan was unable to get funds for a very important project, namely the production of MX missiles. As a consequence of this, I think the whole Western Democratic System might have been imperiledi This would never have happened in the Soviet Union, and I think these are the imperfections of the Democratic System. Do you think, therefore, that we in Botswana should try to copythe Democratic System? Don't you think in Botswana there are certain aspects oi Democracy, even if we have the constitution, that simply cannot flourish on the African Continent? ANSWER: I will try to be very brief. I agree that in a situation where the opposition is not very strong or just a fundamental opposition, it is the right and the duty of the MPs to form the opposition by questioning those colleagues responsible for the Ministries. You can image that sometimes in a One-Party System, there is even more discussion in Parliament than there might have been in a Multi-Party System, because in this case Parliament is trying to control both the party and the government. I think it depends on the historical circumstances. In a coalition government like we have in some of the European countries, you just have to support your government because there is a very precarious balance of power between the different coalition partners. In a system like yours, on the other hand, I think the MPs must be free to criticize and control, but there are certain limitations imposed by the policy as discussed and agreed upon within the party, and I think as long as the party is going to be a Democratic party, the MPs must be kept within this frame, or otherwise form a party of their own, I agree that the military does intervene because of a lack of opposition parties or alternative government. However, it is also necessary to create political consciousness and understanding on the part of the military. This does not mean to involve them in politics, on the contrary. The Military must be educated in political matters, they must know how the political system works. They should not only be trained on how to use arms, but also to value and be prepared to defend the Democratic Order. As to the question of Super Powers, I don't think I can answer this question without going into a controversy. I think the checks and balances in the American system, as they are doing now, is one sian of a healthy Democratic system. Faced with a choice between a strong (or effective) government and a Democratic one (although this is not necessarily an alternative), I personally would opt for the Democratic Government, because a Nation and a Government are strong as long as they have the full support of the people, not because they can effectively exercise decisions. If we compare with the Soviet Union, they have something which could be called a "Symbiosis of the Party and the Military" - high ranking party officials also carry the rank of General or Marshall. This system might be efficient, but I am wary of it. We might see a situation where the Super Powers are not trying to keep a balance but to develop a situation of one-sided advantage, where it might be possible to win a nuclear war. I think this is a very dangerous situation, and I regard it as a very positive sign of a healthy Democratic system in America that this question of nuclear weapons can be discussed and decided as it has been done by Parliament. Thank you very much.

A CRITICAL ANALYSIS OF THE BOTSWANA ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT STRATEGY By Professor Dr Anne Seidman, University of Zimbabwe, Harare Introduction I have been asked to speak, today, on the role of Transnational Corporations in Southern Africa and their implications for Botswana's development strategy. Transnational corporations are large companies that operate in more than one country. To understand their role in Southern Africa and Botswana, I would like, first, to present a model of the way third world countries, like Botswana, fit into the world economy. Then I would like to discuss the role of transnational corporations in building up South Africa as a regional subcentre, and the implications of their corporate behaviour for development strategies in Botswana. Finally, I will be happy to discuss any questions or comments you may raise. The Model First of all, I think to facilitate our discussions, I would like to put on the board a very simple model of the typical economy of a third world country (see figure 1, page 113). Basically the typical economy, including every country in the Southern African Region, has been geared through the years of colonialism to the export of raw materials. In the case of Botswana, the main raw material you are presently exporting is diamonds. Historically, Botswana did not export very much in the way of raw materials. Actually it was exporting labour to work in South Africa. We will talk about that a little more in a few minutes. Beef has also been exported by Botswana. Every Southern African country exports primarily raw materials or labour or both: tobacco, su~qar and a number of metals. Usually, they export the resources in a crude formf to be processed in transnational corporate factories owned outside the country, many of them in Europe and in the United States. Then your countries buy back the manufactured goods produced in those factories, usually at a significantly higher price. This is part of the problem of underdevelopment: the colonial powers were not interested in the establishment of factories here, they had their own factories there. What they were interested in here was the mines and to produce the raw materials needed for their factories. In Zimbabwe, for example, they pushed the Africans out of the best half of the land and turned it over to about 6 000 commercial settler farmers. These employed some 300 000 workers at very low wages to produce most of the agricultural exports sold in the country. That didn't happen so much in Botswana, I assume partly because it happened in the more fertile lands of Zimbabwe and a little bit along the strip of the border here in Botswana. For decades, they saw Botswana as a labour reserve for people to come and work, not only in the settler farms along the border, but also in South Africa. The colonial governments designed the entire institutional structure of the countries in SADCC in a sense to provide a cheap labour force, almost all male, to work in the mines and the estates that were developed to produce these raw materials for the factories abroad

This left the women, the children and the old folk back at home to do what they could to support themselves. That provided the colonialists their argument for paying very low wages.They said you don't need to pay high wages, you just need to pay the man forhis own needs, The women and children are supporting themselves at home. This led to a very skewed income distribution, skewed in the sense that a very small proportion, probably less than 10% of the population in most of the countries in SADCC, receive 50% to 75% of the cash income generated in the economy. The wage workers in these mines and on these estates and the few industries there are, typically get very low wages. People in Southern Africa earn P1,00 or less, compared to P5,00 to P10,00 for similar work paid to the wage earners in the United States or England. The local institutional structure, the way the laws were established, the way the production was carried on then, was geared to the process of exporting raw materials and bringing back manufactured goods creating conditions in which significant numbers of male labourers were forced out of the rural areas to work for very low wages on the mines and estates. The colonialists imposed taxes to make it necessary for people to earn cash. In order to earn cash, they had to go to work in the mines.,l believe you have something like 50 000 people who have been migrating to work in South Africa, is that correct? ANSWER: The number has gone down. In the early '60s, the average was about 20 000. During the drought it was about 30 000 and it has started going down. DISCUSSION: Three factors may help explain why the number is going down. First I am sure any Motswana who could, would prefer to work here. Second, South Africa has begun to mechanise agriculture because the regime wants to reduce its dependence on African labour, reinforcing Apartheid by using machinery to replace man. During the period of the 1970s, when they accumulated large amounts of profits from the high prices of gold, the South Africans spent a lot of it on buying new machinery and equipment. Third, the economic crisis has affected employment in South Africa. Many of the Unemployed South Africans have started working on the mines and farms and people from neighbouring countries have been sent home. All those factors undoubtedly affect the situation. I will be very happy to have anybody ask questions or make comments as we go along. I think this discussion is really a kind of cooperative venture. You know more about Botswana than I do. Perhaps I know something more about the possibilities and role of the transnational corporations and so on. Transnational Corporations and the South African Regional Sub-Centre I said that this was a general model. It is not a model only for Southern Africa. It applies, I think, to most African countries, and even to developing countries elsewhere. But in Southern Africa, an interesting development has taken place in the last 25 to 30 years which has accentuated particular regional features. If you look at this region as a whole, you will find that South Africa, with the assistance of the transnational corporations, has developed as a regional sub-centre (seefigure 2, page 114). The transnationals have poured money not only into the development of the mining sector but also of the industrial sector in South Africa. Today, about 40% of South Africa's manufacturing sector is owned by the foreign owned transnational corporations. Transnational banks, especially Barclays and Standard Bank, own about 60% of South Africa's assets. Foreign Petroleum Corporations own 90% of the petroleum sector. In a sense, countries like Botswana can be viewed as being sort of linked into that whole South African regional sub-centre by the developments in the sort of modern sectors that they have. Here, in Botswana, you have the diamond sector developed by the De Beers Mining Company, which as you know is affiliated to the Anglo American Group which is the largest of the mining finance houses dominating the South Africa economy. Barclays and Standard Bank, through their regional base in South Africa, handle most of your banking business. As we pointed out, labour from the rural areas is going to work on the mines, moving into the cities looking for jobs, a significant share of them going down to South Africa (though as we have just mentioned that situation has changed somewhat). Transnational corporations, with their regional headquarters in South Africa, also dominate Zimbabwe. Throughout UDI, the transnational corporations used their links in South Africa to break UN sanctions, continuing to operate in Zimbabwe. Incidentally, the studies we have done in Zimbabwe shows that during that period, the transnational corporations did not bring new money into Zimbabwe. What they did was to mobilise locally generated funds and re-invest them to take over control of large sections of the economy. So, today about three fourths of the assets in the modern sector, the sector that is associated with tie development of industries and mines, is owned by the transnational corporations. Probably, the most significant of these, the Anglo American Group of South Africa, owns shares in and has control over something like 45 subsidiaries in all sectors of the Zimbabwe economy. They own not only mines, which wouldn't surprise you, but also a significant number of manufacturing industries. They own the country's whole sugar business, from the three plantations in the low veld to the oompany selling sugar overseas. They have investments in tobacco. Our research has shown that during the UDI period, they used the fact that European and American transnational corporations wanted to be linked in with a local company like Anglo American. They viewed Anglo American as local in that it was South African- based. In collaboration with them, Anglo American used its linkages in Zimbabwe to acquire assets and reap huge profits in many sectors of the economy. The transnationals continued operating in Zimbabwe despite UN sanctions, because the cheap labour available under the conditions of UDI made their investments very profitable. We figure that, in 1981, Zimbabwe generated in the order of 1,7 billion dollars of investable surplus. If the government could figure out how to get control of that money it would have a considerable amount of its own funds to invest in restructuring the economy to contribute to the increased standards of living of the population. Historically, all the countries, including South Africa, have been losing large amounts of investable surplus. Transnational corporations ship this surplus out of the country in two forms: directly, in the form of profits, interests and dividends which are paid to transnational corporations; and indirectly, in the form of what we call "terms of trade differences". That is, you pay high prices for your manufactured goods and get relatively low prices for your raw materials. Just take the case of tobacco, which I have been looking at. Zimbabwe, which exports tobacco leaf, gets one dollar for every ten dollars of value paid for cigarettes produced from that leaf and sold overseas. In other words, Zimbabwe gets about 1/10 of the value of its tobacco, which is realised by the sale of cigarettes and the other manufactured products that are made from tobacco outside the country. In the same way, most of the developing countries only earn a fraction of the value of the final product manufactured abroad using their raw material exports. The countries of SADCC are all in a similar situation, although it is complicated by their historical circumstances and relationships to South Africa. Many, like Zirnbabwe and Botswana, ship crude materials to and through South Africa and the transnationals based there, and buy back high priced manufactured goods from South Africa. In all the SADCC countries, you haved a sharply skewed income distribution, as I mentioned earlier. That is very true in Zimbabwe today. You can tell me more about the actual situation in Botswana. Typically, the wage earning group tends to get wages that are not much above the poverty level. About nine out of ten workers get wages that are just about enough to subsist on. The remaining 10% of the salaried earners receive about half of the wage and salary bill. That 10% is linked in with the very high income group. In the typical country, it includes the high paid supervisers of the mines, factory managers, farm managers, top government civil servants and so forth. The peasants either consume their own crops, selling a little surplus - if they have any for cash, hardly enough to buy the barest necessities. In Zimbabwe, a 1978 study showed that the average per capita cash income in the so-called TTL's, the Tribal Trust Lands, which we now call the Communal Areas, was 28 dollars a year. This contrasts sharply with the fact that, in the cities, people were getting per capita incomes on the order of 400 to 600 dollars per capita. Of course, the urban per capita figure obscures the fact that most wage earners in cities also get very low wages, hardly enough for them to buy everything they need to live on. It also ignores a large group of unemployed people, who have drifted into the cities from the rural areas, looking for jobs in the modern sector. The modern sectors are typically what we call capital intensive. They use a lot of machinery and equipment, particularly in the few factories that may exist. They don't provide many jobs. This is just as true in Botswana as it is in Zimbabwe, although Zimbabwe has a much larger industrial sector (25% of Zimbabwe's Gross Domestic Products is now produced in factories). Those factories have a peculiar characteristic: they mainly produce goods for the higher income groups, luxury and semi-luxury items like beer and cigarettes, with a few broadly consumed Items like textiles. (I remember when I was working in Zambia, in the early 1970s, beer and cigarettes made up 40% of the value added by the manufacturing sector). The factories seldom produce machinery and equipment; mostly they rely on imports of machinery and equipment either from the South African sub-centre or from outside. To a large extent, the manufacturing sectors import semi-processed parts and materials instead of using locally produced raw materials. For instance, in Zimbabwe we have done some research looking into Anglo American manufacturing subsidiaries. Managers have told our students who were doing the research that they can't use locally produced clay, available in Zimbabwe, because they already have affiliated suppliers in South Africa. We found a number of cases like that. All the technology and research relating to Zimbabwean manufacturing sectors is being done by the Anglo American affiliates in South Africa, not in Zimbabwe. So much of Zimbabwe manufacturing industry consists of last stage of assembly and processing activities based on more developed industries in South Africa. My favourite example of last stage assembly industry Is the electric light bulbs. The manufacturer imports from outside the brass base, the glass, the filament. All he produces locally is the vacuuml For the most part, these manufacturing plants are owned by transnational corporations subsidiaries. They set up these last stage assembly and processing operations to take advantage of your markets: the higher income groups in your country, who can afford to buy their goods. This truncated industrial sector, then, is usually centred around the maih cities in each country as it is here in Gaborone; in Zimbabwe it is in Bulawayo or Harare. The factories are not spread around the country side to contribute to an increase in productive employment opportunities in the rural areas. In short, the industrial sector, in so far as it developed at all, tends to be highly dependent on the regional sub-centre and the transnational corporations that dominate it. Of course, they are directly and indirectly shipping a major share of the profits out to their parent companies in South Africa and beyond. This means that the work that your citizens are doing in those factories produces surpluses which are available for investment, not in your country, but abroad. In a sense, that presents the problem which confronts all the SADCC countries, Botswana and all the others. The question is, what will you do about it? Betore I come to that or some ideas on that subject, let me ask you if this model fits in with what you know. Do you have any criticism or sugges- tions as to how to make it more realistic or do you want to bring in any illustrations from the Botswana case. Does anybody have any comments? COMMENT: Could you explain what you mean by transnational corporations and if you refer to Anglo American as one of them, how many of these corporations are there which for instance, as you said, own a large part of Zimbabwe. Where are they and so on? ANSWER: "Transnational corporation" is a new name for an old thing. The old companies that came in here, the British South African Corporation for example, were really probably what would today be called transnational corporations. Another name you must have heard of is the multinational corporation. The reason I used the name "transnational corporation" is because it is the name the United Nations officially uses. There is, in the United Nations, now a whole section called the Transnational Corporate Centre. A lot of what I am telling you is based on the research that we did when I was working in the United States as a consultant for the Transnational Corporate Centre. The role of transnational corporations poses problems, not just for Southern Africa or Botswana, but for the third world countries throughout the world. Typically, their control is greatest in areas of mines which require a lot of capital investments. In the area of trade, they tend to control exports to and the imports of manufactured goods from their factories outside. They tend to dominate the banking and financial institutions of developing countries. They are in the business - this is no secret - they are there to maximise their global profits. Their business is not to worry about the local country but to maximise the bottom line for their shareholders. They are not charitable institutions. What they are interested in here in Southern Africa are the low wages, the cheap raw materials and markets for their manufactured goods. They can take advantage of the low wages that have been developed as a result of the historical development of institutions here which force people to work for very low wages. They want cheap labour that is going to continue to work. They want labour that is docile. Every developing country wants industry. I am sure you are always talking about what kinds of laws you can pass to attract industry: do you have to reduce your taxes? Do you have to try and keep your wages low? Every developing country is doing that. In reality, you are competing, isn't that so? But here, South Africa always wins that competition. To illustrate this point, I will just take the United States companies on which I have done some research. US firms began investing in Africa, especially in the last three decades. By 1975, they had invested about 4 dollars out of 5 dollars that they invested in the manufacturing in the entire African continent, not just in Southern Africa, in factories in South Africa. When the Vice-President, Mr Bush, was in Zimbabwe from the United States a couple of weeks ago, he said the US had no interest except the maintenance of peace in Southern Africa. In reality, the United States Government is concerned about US transnational corporate investment in the South African regional sub-centre. That may help explain a lot about the position they are taking in the negotiations relating to Namibia and so on. The reality is that they are asking you to compete, to provide a labour force as suppressed as the one in South Africa. That is something that the countries of Southern Africa are saying we don't want to do. We want to develop. We want to raise the standard of living of our people. Therefore, we want to find another way to try to compete to keep our wages lower than anybody else's in the whole world so that we will attract investors. From the point of view of the transnational corporation, they don't mind paying half of the wage and salary bill to ten percent of the workers. When African countries won their independence, the transnationals didn't mind bringing in Africans to replace some of the Whites in top posts, some of them without much to do. They put them on local Boards of Directors or appoint them as Public Relations Off icers or Personnel Directors. Through these policies transnational corporations seek legitimacy to continue doing what they had done before. I am sure you are familiar with this kind of "window dressing": companies claim that they are Africanising, when in reality, they still make the basic decisions about how to behave in their parent companies' boards of directors back home Alternative Theoretical Explanations What we have talked about so far is really the statement of the problem that confronted every country at the time of their independence. Now, the question is what do you do about it? Let me say, very briefly, that there are two kinds of theoretical explanations that can be given for this situation. Each leads to very different kinds of solutions, so it is important to think through which one is valid in light of the facts. One kind you might call the neoclassical western orthodox ideas. You might call these, if you wish, the ideology of capitalism. They say that if you could only get foreign companies to come and invest in your economy, there is going to be some kind of develop. ment, some kind of trickle down to improve the living standards of the people. You have had almost a hundred years of experience with that kind of foreign investment. There has been some investment in the so-called modern sectors or export enclaves. But you haven't seen much trickle down to the people. In fact, underdeveloping the rural areas in many countries seem worse off. In the TTLs in Zimbabwe for example, the lands have become increasingly over-crowded, increasingly eroded. They are less and less able to support the 700 000 or 800 000 families who have been crowded on to them. I Ithink that problem in different ways exists in most SADDC countries. The capitalist ideology will explain that by saying the real reason for the failure of trickle down to occur is that the people had the wrong attitudes and the wrong institutions. They didn't save their money. They didn't learn to invest. They didn't put their money into developing capitalist projects which could enable this trickle down or multiplier effect, as it is called, to take place. Yet this theory is very widely accepted in the West. It is in fact accepted by the I ntern'ational Monetary Fund and the World Bank experts. A recent booklet called, "The Accelerated Development in Sub-Saharan Africa" written by the World Bank, argues that Sub- Saharan African countries must continue to expand exports of raw materials. They say: Open your economies, eliminate your foreign exchange controls and let your industries compete on the international markets so that they will be effective and efficient. Educate your people to become entrepreneurs so that they can participate in this multiplier effect that will lead to development. That is the underlying philosophy of the World Bank and International Monetary Fund recommendations to the Third World countries. I will leave it for you when you read those documents to see whether I am correct or not. As you know, the International Monetary Fund advisors here in Southern Africa today say: if you don't take our advice, therefore, you don't get our assistance. These are the same advisors, incidentally, who gave a billion dollars to South Africa to solve their balance of payment problems without recommending any significant policy changes. On the other side, you have what might be called socialist ideology which offers a very different explanation for this problem. The explanation which socialists give is that these transnational corporations are coming to your countries precisely in order to get cheap raw materials and markets for their manufactured goods. Of course, they are in business to make money. That is what they are doing it for. Furthermore, as they establish themselves here, with the assistance of the colonial governments, they)achieved monopoly control over significant sectors of your economy. The whole colonial institutional structure was created to push cheap labour into their farms or mines. They are in such a strong position now that African entrepreneurs cannot compete effectively with them. In some cases, as in Zimbabwe, working together with a local capitalist factory, the settler minority that is working with the transnational controls the 600 commercial farms, the mines and factories and are in such a position as to be able to prevent would-be African businessmen from competing. So, for example in Botswana, if you do manage to save a few thousands, P10000, P15 000 or P30 000 from your cattle business, you still are not going to be able to successfully enter into competition with the Anglo American Group which has over 7 billion dollars' worth of assets on a world wide scale. The socialist argument is that small African capitalists really can't efficiently com ete with these large transnationals that dominate their banking sectors. their factories, their mines and even in some cases - like the Zimbabwe sugar plantations I mentioned - the estate sector. Different explanations lead to different solutions. I wonder, Mr Chairman, whether I should stop to see if anybody wants to comment on these explanations in light of the experience in Botswana. Does anybody have any comments or questions or criticisms or disagreements? I will be glad to have you raise them now. COMMENT: Professor, you mentioned the problems that may be created by these transnational companies. / wonder if you can elucidate further as to whether by their own solutions, they do come into these countries and establish these various governments. I am saying this because in Botswana, historically, the British South African Company was in fact supported by the British Government. And you have just mentioned that when Bush was here, saying we have no interest in Southern Africa or South Africa other than for peace, in fact large amounts of US investments have been poured into South Africa over the last 20 years. / want to get that aspect clear, whether they have the support of their governments because nowadays it is so common that every development is done by the various donor countries which we come to know. Any loans or grants are always tied to the country of origin,.so that the companies from that country are being supported because all the manufactured goods must come from that country. You must buy the British, you must buy the US goods in order to get the loan. ANSWER: I think your point is extremely well taken, that in fact the governments of the Western developed countries always have supported their companies and their activities. You mentioned the British South African Company. I am sure you are familiar with Botswana history. You know that there was a time when the King here was trying to set up'a local trading company in competition with the British South African Company. The colonial government simply stepped in and said, you can't do that, and closed down this African state trading venture. Historically, the competition was never fair because the colonial government stepped in on the side of their home based companies. Now, of course, foreign governments can't do that in the old way because they don't have outright colonial control. They have developed a number of new techniques. Once of them you have already mentioned, which is the tied loan: We will lend you money, but you must buy, say, US or British goods. We want you to agree to let our companies come and invest on certain kinds of terms. I think you are already familiar with that experience. There is no question; that is true throughout the world. Just as the companies are not imaginary institutions or charitable institutions, so their governments are interested in improving the companies' situation. They tax these companies; that is where they get their revenues and so forth from. There are in those countries people who are strongly opposed to the role of the transna. tional corporations in developing countries. The working people in the US for example, confront the same transnational corporations which have invested in South Africa. The workers in General Motors, a big US transnational, discovered that the Motorist Company is getting very cheap machinery and equipment produced by low paid labour in South Africa while they are being laid off in the US. As you know, there is 10% unemployment in the United States. As I told my students in Zimbabwe, there are more unemployed people in the United States now than all the men, women and children living in Zimbabwe. The US unemployed workers number about ten times the entire population of Zimbabwe. Official data show that in the inner cities of Detroit and New York, more than 50% of the population is unemployed. It is very rough for some of those people. They would like to see the development of equitable trade between the countries, based on raising the productivity and the standard of living of people on both sides of the world. I mentioned that because in every country there is sometimes a situation where the working people have enough influence on their governments to get them to adopt different positions. That is not the case presently in most of the countries from which came the transnational corporations that have been investing in Southern Africa today. COMMENT I think the first part of your lecture deals with Export Orientated Industrialisation, and particularly with reference to transnational corporations, I am sure we can 't deal with that without recognising the fact that colonial history itself is full of this sort of situation. In fact if they had any intentions at all, the colonizers sought not only territorial acquisition but also to find raw materials and other things that could supply the whole country. in dealing with this aspect of transnationals we must regard them as a natural concomitant of colonialisation itself. Therefore, / take it that our efforts at the momentshould be to try and see how we can disengage, since we have attained political independence in order to have a full if not complete share in the industrial activities of our countries. Of course, you would find that perhaps we lack the expertise that the multinational corporations introduced in exploiting the resources in this country which albeit independent politically, has not attained economic independence. The people haven't the skills, the technology, the technical expertise that naturally must enable them to exploit the resources that are found in their countries, and of course, manufacture them so that they don 't go out as raw materials any longer. We are endeavouring to do that in Botswana, for instance in our mining venture. We ne. gotiate to a point where we feel quite satisfied that at least we are not completely subservient to the transnational company with which we are involved. I therefore think that we can recognise that the colonizers had to get the best they could get out of our countries. In the case of Botswana for instance, the exploitation wasn't as full scale as in other countries and thus we are in a better position, perhaps unlike our friends of other countries who were fully exploited. We are now grappling with. our problems and entering into agreements to secure our best interests. Other Alternative Development Strategies ANSWER: In a sense, whatyou were saying is where do we go from here, and this is what Botswana is already doing, to try to reduce dependence on transnational corporations. Before I take up that issue a little more fully, let me just say one thing about export industrialisation. The World Bank booklet on accelerated development in the '80s argues: look, in your rountries the market is too small and if you want to develop industrialisation it has to be developed to sell exported manufactured goods elsewhere. So you want to export industrial products instead of raw materials. Every country in Southern Africa wants to do that. Zimbabwe, for example, is being advised by the International Monetary Fund to devalue its currency so that it can sell its manufactured goods more cheaply outside the country. As you know, Zimbabwe has just devalued its currency by 20% this past week. Now, the same argument is being given to every country. When you devalue, you may reduce the prices of the goods that you are selling outside the country in terms of other currencies. But you also increase the cost of everything you import into the country. In a sense, all the countries are getting the same advice, which is, if you want to expand your exports, you must compete to sell abroad. In a sense, you are also competing with each other through devaluation. All of you are doing that. What is the result? The real question about export industrialisation is, where will all the countries sell the goods they manufacture? You are all competing to sell. Remember that today 10% unemployment in Europe and the United States means that those countries will not import goods in competition with the ones they manufacture there. The high unemployment rate reflects the fact that their industries are operating at 20% to 30% less than capacity which means that they don't even buy as much of your raw materials as they did before. That is one of the reasons so many African countries have balance of payment problems. In general, if you can't sell your raw materials, you don't have the money to buy the machinery, equipment and semi- processed materials on which colonialism has made your economies dependent. What Western economists call a "recession" - what is really the biggest depression since the great depression of the 1930s in the developed countries of Europe - has in fact deeply affected the South African economy too. It has a serious impact on every country in this region. It limits the markets for your exports whether they are raw materials or manufactured. So, when you get into this competition, in fact, each one of you is pushing down the real incomes of your population by devaluation. That is really what happens since devaluation raises the cost of everything you have to import. The question is, what strategies will enable your country and all the countries of SADCC to develop? You have mentioned that in Botswana you have tried to negotiate with transnational corporations. For example, you obtained shares in the mines. Incidentally, it is interesting that business publications today advise the transnational corporations to let the local governments buy shares in their mines, in the industries. They say that they will thus bring government on their side in negotiations with workers who might want to raise their wages, or to obtain assistance in expanding exports and so on. But you need to stop and think when you negotiate with these transnationals: what is their role in the pattern of development taking place in your country. Are they really contributing to spreading productive employment opportunities throughout the entire economy? Is industry that is being set up providing the kinds of tools and equipment that will enable the peasants to increase their productivity at appropriate levels? Is the industry providing the necessary consumer goods for them so that they can have a higher standard of living - food, clothing, house materials, furniture and so on? Are the industries being established processing the raw materials for markets that can be used to increase the standard of living here. Or are you getting into the export competition abroad so that in order to sell, you must reduce the prices by pushing down the wages so that in tact you are not really raising the standard of living here but providing cheap raw materials for people outside the country. These are some of the questions that you have to think about. Even with the mining companies, I think it is necessary to examine the extent to which you are getting control over the investable surpluses they generate. What do the mines give you? Can you get that surplus from those mines and invest them according to plan to create the kind of industry that is going to restructure your economy? That is really what you need consider. I understand, for example, that in the recent period the banks here - Barclays and Standard, which I mentioned are British banks with their major regional investments in South Africa, have been overliquid. This is a technical term which means that they had more money to lend out than they had in fact been lending to people or businesses in this country. Why have they not been lending more? Basically, because the small peasants in the rural areas haven't any projects which make it economically viable for them to borrow large amounts for investment. No African entrepreneur is in a position to compete with the large outputs of South African manufacturing industries' goods in which within the framework of the South African Customs Union, the transnational corporations have invested most of their funds. Private local firms are not likely to be able to develop industries to provide productive employment and produce manufactured goods the people need. There isn't anybody to borrow all this money, so the banks are sitting there, over-liquid, with more money than they can lend. Meanwhile, people find that they can barely make a living. They need more tools to farm, more houses, more clothing. But without jobs, they can't buy the things they need. it is the job of governments to intervene here. The government is the only instrument the people of Botswana have for increasing productive employment opportunities for people and raising their living standards. Individual Batswana cannot do it. The question is, how can the government intervene: not just by acquiring shares in the mines but by getting control of the investable surpluses that those mines generate and developing some kind of plans for investments to build industries directed to meet the needs of the people, raise their standards of living. COMMENT: Just at that point where we find ourselves with banks flooded with money and the indigenous people because of their size and perhaps very small scope for development cannot draw that money and utilise it, what would be wrong with the government approaching the banks, realising of course that the banks would not in most cases allow government to go on long term loan facilities. But certainly I feel it would be a much more realistic approach to utilise the resources that are available internally than to let the banks remain flooded with so much money while the government borrows or gets loans from the World Bank or the IMF. Will .there be anything wrong with the country itself approaching or drawing those resources from the local banks to re-utilise them? ANSWER: That is a very interesting question. If governments are convinced, in line with the kind of capitalist development strategy, that it should stay out of the productive activity, it may borrow money to expand social services, education, health and so on. In Zimbabwe, in accord with this kind of thinking, the government has expanded social services very rapidly since independence. It has not increased taxation as fast, partly I think in line with the notion that if you expand taxation then you won't be able to attract transnationals to come and invest. But the transationals haven't been investing anyway. Zimbabwe received only about $20 million in new investments in the first year after independence. Given $1,7 billion dollars of investable surplus generated in the country itself, this seems like peanuts. We estimate that the transnational corporations are shipping out about $300 million a year directly in the form of profits, interest and various forms of fees, and indirectly through transfer payments. The Zimbabwe Government apparently has now been convinced that during the process of transformation, it really must allow the private sector to make the decisions for productive investment, while government borrows funds to finance social and economic infrastructure. They have borrowed some money from the banks for that. But experience throughout the Third World shows that when the government borrows for social and economic infrastructure which doesn't load to increased production, you have an inflationary situation. One way of diagramming this is shown in the attached Figure 3 (page 115). Most economists, socialist and capitalist, will agree that if you want your gross domestic product, your total national output to increase, say over a 20 year period, enough to raise wages and improve the standards of living of the population, then you have to invest about a quarter of the national output in the productive sectors: mines, farms, factories. You must also set aside funds for social services. Every government in the Third World, for its legitimacy, has to provide increased social services to meet the needs of the growing population. The economists agree, if you want to do all that, you have to invest at least 25% of your gross domestic products in productive activities, in the new industries, in agriculture, in ways that will increase output to finance the rising standard of living. Some economists say you must leave the decision as to what and where to invest in productive activity to private firms. That means that whether government gets tax money or borrows from the banks, it should only invest in roads, schools, hospitals, etc., on the assumption that private firms will invest in production activities. In Africa, as we've seen, the private firms mostly turn out to be transnational corporate affiliates. When you look at the reality of country after country - and I believe this is true of Botswana as well - the transnational corporations who have the money to invest, do not invest in productive activities throughout the economy. They tend to concentrate on the mines, big agricultural estates, a few last stage assembly and processing factories. They don't really contribute very much to spread productive employment in all sectors throughout the country. If you were a transnational corporation manager or a manager of a local authority of the transnational corporation situation and you wanted to maximise your profit - that is what you are in business for - where would you invest? It is not very profitable to invest out there in the rural areas, is it? And you wouldn't do it. The banks are not going to lend money to people out there either. They say, those people don't have viable enough projects, so why should we lend them money. And they don't. I am not telling ypu a new story. This is reality. The question you have to ask yourselves is, well then, if you really want to get this 25% invested in the productive sectors, isn't it really going to be necessary for the government itself to invest there? If you are looking at the objective conditions that exist, whatever kind of economy you cail it, the state is going to have to intervene if you want to provide productive employment opportunities and raise living standards. The question is, how does the state intervene? If the state intervenes to borrow money only to finance social services and lets investments decline, after a while the GDP is going to fall too, (see Figure 3B, page 115). Oncethe GDP goes down, then you find yourself like in many other African countries where you have to cut your social services and you have to cut your wages. You may not cut wages directly. Instead you devalue your currency. When you devalue, you are in fact raising the cost of all the goods that your country must import and you are cutting the real incomes of everybody in the country. Then to come back to your earlier question: How effectively can the government intervene in order to get a more balanced integrated economy which does meet the needs of the population? If you ask me to write a plan, that would be too big a job for this morning. But let me just suggest some of the ingredients for the kind of plan you would need to think about, the kind of plan which government would have to undertake. You would want industry to play an important role to stimulate increasing agricultural and mining productivity. Industry has to provide the necessary tools for agriculture and eventually for mining too. Agriculture and mining in turn have to provide raw materials for industry. You also want to continue selling mineral exports because you need to earn some foreign exchange so that you can buy the machinery and equipmont to build your industries. Industry also must produce consumer goods to increase the standard of living of the population working in the agricultural and mining sectors. As their Incomes go up, they, in turn provide the market for this growing industrial output. Agriculture has to provide the food stuffs for the people who are going to work in the industries. And, as productivity in agriculture and the mines increases, industries absorb labour. In short, in intervening directly, the government is going to have to implement a plan to achieve a balanced relationship between developing industry, agriculture and mining in order to increase the productive employment opportunities and raise the standard of living of the population (see Figure IV, page 116). Now, this leads us to the next question: how can you make pians liKe this in a country with a population of less than a million people, a population of less than even middle-sized cities in Europe, the US or the more developed socialist countries? Modern industry today, like iron and steel, petrol and chemicals, those industries which produce the machinery with which to build factories have to have markets that are much bigger than any single country in Southern Africa. How can you develop the kinds of industry which would alone enable you, not only to produce the necessary tools and equipment and machinery, but to manufacture all the materials you need, so that you can become increasingly self- reliant. This is related to the question of disengagement. I am not arguing, and I don't think anybody really argues, that you want to stop all trading with the rest of the world. But the question is, how do you plan to restructure your economies so that you can become less deoendent on the economic ups and downs of the world; so you can begin to bargain with transnational corporations on an equal footing to get fair prices for your exports, and what happens to your economy when it no longer depends primarily on the transnationals' decisions. That is where SADCC comes in. SADCC makes it possible for you now not to think and plan just for your economically small individual countries, but to plan for a population of 50 to 60 million people; a market of over 15 to 20 billion dollars; and investable surpluses of 4 to 5 billion dollars a year for the region as a whole. You could build a lot of factories for 4 to 5 thousand million dollars! As you invest this money according to plan throughout the region, by the year 2000 you would have a lot of viable industries and agricultural projects. Investable surpluses would increase to about 12 billion dollars. SADCC provides you with the possibility of taking advantage of the vast resources of the region. You have a land which is almost as big as the land of the United States. You have all the resources for building modern industries. You have petroleum in Angola, for example. At a recent energy conference in Zimbabwe, the Angolan Government said they would be willing, if the appropriate contract relations can be worked out, to provide all the petroleum needed for all SADCC. Angola would benefit too, because it could then construct a large scale refining plant to provide certain products for sale to the other countries which could specialise in other refined products. Eventually, Angola could develop a petrol chemicals industry to produce things like fertilizers and synthetic materials which you are currently importing. Zambia has copper and copper smelting refining capacity. Botswana, Zimbabwe and an independent Namibia could send their copper to Zambia for refining, instead of to South Africa or the United States. You could develop a whole complex in Zambia to refine copper and produce such items as copper wire and all the fixtures required for electrification or the specialised production of wire and fixtures could take place in factories in several SADCC countries. A factory in Botswana might use brass and copper from Zambia to produce light bulbs. Botswana has many other possibilities for industrial production if it could sell the output throughout SADCC. Botswana could develop a meat packing, leather and shoe production. The Selebi Ph ikwe mine today burns off sulphur produced in the first stage processing of copper and nickel. Zimbabwe presently imports sulphur from abroad, shipping it in by train from Mozambique's ports. Botswana might process its sulphur and sell it to Zimbabwe. What I am talking about is a regional plan in which the resources of all these countries could be developed so that ore is processed in regional factories, not just on a small scale for each individual country but on a large scale for the regional markets. Eventually the SADCC countries will be able to produce the basic capital goods, the machinery and equipment needed for a self-reliant industrialised economy. By the year 2000, with this kind of planned coordinated investment, you could carry through a significant transformation of the region for industrial development. This approach is qualitatively different from the one recommended by those economists who say, "expand your industries for sale outside the country and do the best you can to enter into competitive international markets". That approach could well undermine and destroy SADCC. Zimbabwe's factories, for example, already produce 25% of its national products. Its factories are more developed than those in some of the neighbouring countries. If they were allowed to simply sell their products in a common market in Southern Africa they might put some new industries - your factories, or in Zambia or in other countries - out of business. No country is going to allow that, so you would put up a high tariff. The minute you did that, of course, you would have undermined SADCC. The only way that SADCC can help member countries realise the industrial potential of the region, reducing their dependence on South Africa, is by working out a coordinated regional industrial plan. That plan should identify the key industries around which each member country can develop its economy, and work out the necessary institutions and training to guarantee that those regional industries are in fact established. For example, it might be agreed that Botswana was going to develop leather products industry as a major industrial base - I am just pulling this out of a hat; you could probably think of a better example. If your government was going to borrow money from the banks to invest in developing this industry, you would need to know that you would have a guaranteed market for its output in the neighbouring countries. You might negotiate with Zimbabwe to buy leather products from you.In exchange, you might buy, say, steel from Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe has, as you know, an iron and steel industry. It was originally established during the Federation. They originally had a sheet and plate operation but it was closed down when the Federation broke up because the market of Zimbabwe alone wasn't adequate to make it viable. Zimbabwe could establish sheet and plate production once again if it would be guaranteed that the neighbouring countries would buy that steel. So you might negotiate an agreement to exchange steel for leather products to help make these new industries economically viable. In other words, SADCC member countries could work out bilateral or multilateral contracts or agreements to buy certain amounts of each others' products at certain prices. This would help them realise the possibility of establishing industrial complexes throughout the region which would rapidly stimulate attainment of a more balanced integrated regional economy. This would help all the SADCC countries reduce their dependence on the transnational corporations and their regional headquarters in South Africa. I would like to mention that we had a little conference in Zimbabwe in June on the legal techniques for dealing with the transnational corporations within the framework of SADCC. We had representatives from most of the SADCC countries there, as well as experts from various countries throughout the world. We talked about various ways in which, within the framework of this kind of a regional plan, the SADCC countries could more effectively deal with the transnational corporations which dominate all the economies in the region. We put together several proposals. For example, you could develop an investment code for the region. Then, instead of each country competing to try to create the most attractive conditions for transnationals' investments, you would agree on a floor, a minimum set of conditions, beneath which no country would go: these are the minimum taxes that any SADCC member will insist on collecting from the companies. These are the minimum standards for working conditions and so on. The corporations, on their side, will more probably wish to invest in the larger regional market. Then you say, okay, you can do so within the framework of our regional plan. The plan provides the framework for investment code. It will identifN what you want the companies to do and the things that you will not let them do. I think there is a need to look at the possibilities of developing such a regional code fairly quickly. The sooner you get a floor, the minimum set of conditions below which no member state will permit the transnationals to bargain, the more likely you are able to realise the possibilities of meaningful regional development. There are other aspects of regional cooperation that need to be looked at. You need to study the regional financial structure. How can you carry out payments between the countries so that you can finance the exchange of industrial goods that you produce according to this plan without necessarily using the "hard" currencies of the developed countries? There is no reason why you have to be dependent on US dollars or British pounds or French francs. You could develop your own trade and payments arrangements within the region. That needs research and very careful analysis. But it can be done. Let me just stop there, and open the floor for questions, comments and arguments. COMMENT BY THE PRESIDENT: The first request I would like to ask from you is the one related to your model with the multinationals investing in the mining sector and a few industries from which they think they can maximise profits. I would like you to shoot down our approach because here we have said, it would be foolhardy to think of businessmen coming into Botswana and acting as charitable organisations. So all we need to do is to see how much we can maximise what we can get from them, and having done that, use that money for the development of all the sectors of our economy that need to be developed. We have several approaches. One is that we established the Botswana Development Corporation, and we give the Botswana Development Corporation prime business target areas to invest in, because it is they who we also call upon when we need a service to provide that service. Secondly, we have recently put up a Commission for Mr Mmusi and his team to look into the participation of Batswana in business because we felt there was something wrong, even though we couldn't pinpoint it. We were trying to get this pinpointed so that we could remove the impediments that were stopping people from investing. So that while government provides the channels which will facilitate the private sectors' activities we should not only be providing channels for the transnationals but we should also be providing them for our people. That has been our second approach. The third approach has been that we made available through the National Development Bank a fund to help farmers, from buying a hoe to a tractor. The fourth approach and it is a very recent one, is that we voted at the beginning of this year that a sum of P5 million should be given as grants to industries which are productive, looking into various sectors, import substiW.t ion, labour creation and consumption of local raw materials. We have set up in the Ministry of Commerce and Industry small enterprise development units which really carry on extension work aimed at doing what we do now, having demonstrators going around showing farmers how to plough. I am not going to go into details, this is a sort of sketch of what is here. Could you shoot that down? Could you say, well, the weakness of an approach like that is this and that and the other? We find government intervention to be limited in that we don't have the entrepreneurial.personnel in government. Government is Ministers and officials and they are not business people. We therefore tend to side with the idea of government providing the facilities and the people doing the investment, that is, in the private sector. But then we say, who are the private investors? They are likely to be the transnational corporations, so we should see about how to promote our people to do that job. My second question concerns wages. Anybody coming here and saying, "Let the wages go up "; would be declared a hero and some people would feel that we should have a national day for him. One of our problems is the UK companies that make money like water and therefore, if they like, they can map all people who really would make industry work, keep them out of circulation and pay them for keeping them there, doing nothing. We have therefore had a wages policy which tries, to equate wages with work. We are using an imperfect machinery for doing that because we use people. People in various sectors of the economy must earn comparable wages, taking all into account. If De Beers hires all the people with the initiative, we can forget about agriculture because agriculture also needs people with initiative. If Selebi Phikwe hires the rest, we can now forget about industries because industry needs people with initiative. As to my third question - I am Chairman of SADCC and it will sound funny to hear this question coming from me, because it would seem as if I am skeptical, I don.t believe in it and so forth. But we are all emerging independent countries. We all like to start with industries of least resistance, for instance, vegetable oil mills. We already know there is a war between Botswana and Zimbabwe. We shall find that at a national level there is this rivalry. There are other factors. We are not equally developed and therefore cannot claim to start from the same base. A country like Botswana faces terrible disadvantages. We have a small population and therefore a small market. We have the highest power tariffs, not in Southern Africa alone, but in the whole world because we have just come into electricity industry and therefore, we have bought at inflation prices. No wonder our electricity is so expensive. We have no pool of technocrats or even just artisans. If we do, for instance, what you suggested earlier, we say these are the basics, this is the minimum that any country will have taxation to equate. There are other factors we cannot change, that Zimbabwe has got any amount of power and it is cheap unless some of it comes this way, and the Zimbabweans will not take it kindly. We have our own trade unions. Let me give you another case in point of something which is between Zimbabwe and Botswana. it is a declared intent to take over the railway. We were in a hurry to do it during the Smith regime, but we thought we would do it leisurely with the new government. They started pushing us to give them a definite date, so that we can plan properly what date is the target date. We were pushed into doing that. Once we were pushed into doing that, we also had to start training. We are training people when we don't have a railway line and then you find that the Zimbabweans' trade unions do not like these foreigners from Botswana to come and work in Zimbabwe. They still want our chaps to be apprenticed to chaps who are less trained. It is a popular thing. I don't know whether it is right or wrong but it is generally felt that if a man comes from England, he finds you doing a job and you teach him how to do the job, he gets twice what you get. Our comrades across the border seem to be battling to train drivers who already have work. But with artisans we were hitting our heads against the wall. This doesn't bide well for the future because you begin to have doubts - all these problems with a simple thing like a railway which you can easily regionalse with a Botswana Administration of the Zimbabwean Railways and a Zim- babwe Administration of the Zimbabwe Railways. In any case, you know that Zimbabwe has just shipped in a hundred Indians. You say, now, 350 indians can come into Zimbabwe but 35 Batswana cannot find work in Zimbabwe, and you are building eco. nomic union? Does this argue well for a planned strategy which you mentioned earlier? ANSWER: Three very good questions and not really easy ones to answer either, based on real experience which is the only way that any of these problems could be solved, step by step. There are no easy answers to any of them. First of all, relating to the general Botswana approach to development in Botswana: the five main points that you made about the way the government has been going about attaining development. How would I evaluate this, given my basic argument that you need to get hold of the surpluses which have been generated by the existing productive structure, and invest them to facilitate expanded production, particularly by Botswana, in the industrial sector. This is a very complicated question and I don't think that anyone, just talking on a Sunday morning, can do justice to it. The constraints that you confront in trying to carry out this policy I think are serious. For example, you set up the Botswana Development Corporation in certain business areas. The Zimbabwe Government have done the same thing. It is trying to attract these firms to come to these growth pole points which are scattered in areas left underdeveloped by the colonial experience. The difficulty is, and this has been experienced the world round, given the choice between investing in Gaborone and Francistown and going to some more remote areas, the transnationals always tend to invest in the developed towns: It.is very hard to make investment in rural areas sufficiently attractive. If they are manufacturing firms, they want to maximise their profits by investing in the urban areas where the incomes are high. They are really trying to take advantage of that market. They want to build on the railway so that they can bring in semi-processed materials from outside because they are really building last-stage assembly and process plants to get into your market. Local businesses would have to compete with transnational firms set up in those advantageous places. What you have to think about, to shift the pattern of investment and encourage local people to participate, is how you use government strategy to provide the basic necessary conditions to make it economically viable for them to invest in rural areas and help them to do it. You may wish to tax more heavily if they invest in the centre and so on. There are a number of devices you may wish to try. The lessons learned through experience elsewhere, suggest that none of the devices are very effective in trying to attract private investment to desired areas. They will leave the critical sectors - what have been called heights of your economy - in the hands of foreign interests. You have already established your own national bank to help some small agricultural and other enterprises as I understood' it. P5 million, incidentally, is a very small amount for local enterprise when, as I say, you are competing with a company like Anglo American which has about 7 billion dollars of assets at their command. Can you really compete? The commercial banks have available funds to lend far more. As I said, I don't have the exact figures, but I suspect that P5 million is a very small fraction of the funds that are available to Standard or Barclays Bank. If you want to get greater control of those funds then government need to control the financial sector more effectively so it can allocate credit to areas of desired investment. Secondly, you are presently in the South African Customs Union. Any enterprise that you set up is in a sense in competition with the enterprises established in South Africa, that have far larger amounts of capital available to them. I haven't done a study here, but I suspect that it is going to be rather difficult for local citizens to set up in competition with South African Industries within the framework of the Customs Union.

Probably no individual Motswana alone can afford to establish any kind of basic industries, even small factories, to produce tools and equipment for Batswana peasants to increase their productivity. The government itself may want to invest in some of those kinds of industries. Frankly, given the small size of the Botswana market, it would probably make sense to do that within the framework of a SADCC plan. That is not a very satisfactory answer, but what I am trying to say is that I think that your efforts to try attracting Batswana into industry and agriculture within the framework of the South African Customs Union, is likely to be very difficult unless the government can develop a whole range of supportive techniques. The government will probably need time to increase control over the financial sector, the trading sector and the development of basic industries to provide supportive framework within which smaller industries can get started. I have had an opportunity in the past to look at Botswana's approach. Given the constraints of the situation you are in, I think you made a very good step in the right direction of making changes. ft seems to me that you have possibilities of moving along in a step-by-step process of reducing your dependence on South Africa. We suggested at the conference of economists here, in the last few days, on Economist Research at Universities in the region, that we need to study howcountries in the South African Customs Union can begin to reduce their dependence on that linkage and begin to move into a SADCC-related cooperative regional industrial planning unit. That is going to be very tricky. The step-by-step process by which you achieve that disengagement process is something on which we need to do research. If the governments of the SADCC countries want to move in the direction of developing a regional plan, it seems clear they will need to get sufficient control over the import of goods and re-channel them to come from neighbouring countries away from South Africa. The question of how that is done is going to take some very serious analysis. The SADCC countries will need, too, to cooperate in developing mutually beneficial trade and payments agreements so they can reduce their dependence on foreign "hard currencies' US dollars, British pounds, etc. - to finance their intercountry trade. All this relates to the third question which I will come back to. It is a very important question. I did want to say that in relation to breaking your independence on South Africa youwill, as you say, need to focus on developing appropriate skills and techniques. Here again maybe SADCC can focus on training cadres for the region, as well as solving the kinds of problems which you mentioned in connection with the railways. Regional training and regional expertise should be developed to replace the transnational corporate and other foreign expertise on which many of the SADCC countries still depend. There is another problem which I would like to raise for you to think about. I don't know the answer to it. It is a problem that has plagued many countries. We have talked about the existence of transnationals and their dominant role in economy. Some countries, like Kenya or the Ivory Coast have encouraged private citizens to participate in investment in the economy by taking shares in transnational corporation investment in affiliates, or buying large scale farms. Typically, only a group of wealthy people join this high income group. In Zimbabwe, in the past, it only included the White minority, but now there are a few Africans joining it. When the local citizens join this class, they view their interests as tied to maximising profits. They are less concerned about what happens to restructuring the entire economy. A new class of citizen emerges whose interest is to maintain the status quo because now they benefit from it. That is a problem which I think you need to think about. As you develop your plans for restructuring the economy, and as people begin to earn high salaries or become shareholders in transnational corporation affiliates, they too may tend to say, really it is more profitable to invest in the already developed sectors: their motives are not different from those of the transnationals except that they may keep more of their profits in the country. That certainly happened in Zimbabwe with the White minority. In Kenya, after independence, Blacks joined or replaced Whites in those high income positions. They did not restructure the economy to provide increasingly productive employment in every sector. Poverty and unemployment has grown worse. The Kenyans still confront those problems. Now I will return to the question on wages which is not related to the problem of an emerging high income group interested in maintaining the status quo. Certainly, it makes good sense to say that wages have to be related to work that people do. It Is clear, from an economics point of view, that if wages get out of line, then they tend to reduce the amount of money that is available for investment in restructuring the economy. Clearly the government needs to formulate a wage policy. But that policy must focus on the total wage bill. As I mentioned, in most SADCC countries less than 10% of the wage earners have received about half the total wages bill. Often, businessmen complain, and they complain in Zimbabwe too, if you raise the minimum wages, we will have to raise prices or go out of business. You will have inflation or unemployment or both. But the same people who complain about that, the business managers and personnel officers, engineers and supervisors, say, we don't want government to freeze our salaries, we want to have more money. But wage policy has got to look at the question of how you make sure that the people at the minimum level are getting an adequate wage to support them and at the same time begin to reduce the gap, inherited from the past, between the highest and lowest paid wages. Another issue relates to the fact that many persons in the narrow incomes do not get wages but receive profits and rents. That very group which may come into being as a result of your efforts to encourage small scale local businessmen to get going, also say: keep those wages down. But the majority of the working people and the peasants will object if they see a few people becoming very wealthy, a small handful of people driving a Mercedes Benz, while they are trying to make do with barely enough to live on. This will lead to serious social unrest. That appears to have been an important cause of the recent upheaval in Kenya. What factors should the government take into consideration in setting a Wages and Income Policy? First, you want to try to raise the minimum wages so that people have enough to live on. At the same time the economy must set aside enough money for investment. You have to determine the extent to which the government is going to tax locally generated investable surpluses to make investments itself; or perhaps assert greeter control over the financial sector to direct investment into appropriate areas. You need to make it clear to the people that you plan investment to increase productive employment opportunities for everyone. Then they may be more willing to accept some kind of wage limitations. If on the other hand, they see that a small class of people get higher incomes in urban areas and nothing is being done to provide increasingly productive emplayment for the majority of the population, people will begin to resent efforts to impose wage restraints. They say, if it is everybody for himself or herself, we are going to do it too. They will demand wage increases without regard to the income policy. COMMENT. We find that, just taking it nationally, we are dealing with two different groups of people. You deal with the top bracket who are internationally marketable and then you deal with people who are internationally unmarketable. The difficulty is, the less you have of the top people, the less you will have to employ the lower people because it is the top people who make it all go. In a free country like Botswana, we can't stop all Permanent Secretaries from going to the World Bank or to Geneva or to the EEC, EA C or going to work for OA U. We have that problem. Should we pay them something which approximates their international price, and if we do so then you're faced with the resultant disparity. Should we stop them and push the people from the bottom? These are the problems which we would like to hear your opinion on. ANSWER: These are the sixty-four-dollar questions. It is not easy. In fact, we discussed this very question last week in our conference on teaching and research in economics. This is a problem affecting the world over and it is a problem in SADCC countries. The long run solution is to train more people locally. For example, in economics, we are proposing a SADCC-wide economic post-graduate programme where the students can develop research relating to these problems, and train for post-graduate degrees here in the region and not in some far away places where they learn to think in other terms. On a regional level, many institutions exist where we could train high level personnel. This may have two advantages. I have worked in graduate institutions in the United States and seen African students come and get pushed into whole programmes which are simply irrelevant to Africa. Then they try to stay where their new training is relevant - in the US. That is one of the causes in the "brain drain". Secondly if you can train people locally, and they become engaged in solving problems locally, they remain dedicated to their own country. They think about its problems, they are challenged by them and they want to stay there to help solve them. This is a long term solution. The real solution probably lies in trying to train highly qualified people in the region, encouraging them to participate in transforming the economy in their own culture and their own society, which would be better for everybody including themselves and their families. If they really see progress, they are more likely to stay. Perhaps if people are trained in SADCC countries and not outside, they will develop some of the answers to these questions in the very process of their training as economists and so on. Finally, I am impressed that this kind of seminar may help to answer your second question. In a sense, all of you as a Members of Parliament provide a bridge between what goes on in government circles and what goes on throughout the country. In a sense, you need to help the peasants and the working people throughout the entire economy understand what governments are doing, and ask them for suggestions and help. At the same time you can say, bear with us, we have got to solve these problems together. I am enormously impressed that you are having this kind of seminar. I think when you go back and talk with the people, you can involve them in understanding the process so that they themselves can see that these are difficult problems. On the other hand, most of the people here in this room probably have relatives who are asking them, what are you doing for us? You can't answer in terms of what you are doing for them as an individual family. Obviously, to help one family at the expense of others would interfere with restructuring the entire economy. You have to help them understand the larger problem. I would argue that if you have a strategy which you can explain to the people for restructuring the economy and if you can show them that government are getting sufficient control of the investable surpluses generated in the country and making sure they are invested in ways that are going to contribute to benefit everyone - not just a few individuals who are making money at the expense of the rest - then I think you will find much more willingness from peopole to go along with proposals to restrain their demands for higher wages and so forth. This is perhaps the best answer that I can give you. The third question was the one raised about SADCC. I think that you stated the problem very well, and I know you are aware that building SADCC is very difficult. All the countries here have their own developments. They have populations and land areas of very different sizes; different histories; different backgrounds. Nevertheless, the peoples and governments of SADCC share two important goals in common: One is the desire to reduce their dependence on apartheid South Africa. That is extremely important. If the SADCC countries can't solve the kinds of problems you brought up, they will remain dependent on South Africa and the apartheid regime there. Secondly, all the SADCC countries want development. They all face these problems we have been talking about. Their government must convince the mass of peasants and the working people that they really are trying to restructure the economy. Undoubtedly, some individuals in the governments want to take advantage personally of the status quo to thwart the process of change. But the governments as a whole are all dedicated to achieving development. The question is how, on the foundation of these mutually shared concerns, can the SADCC member countries implement the step-by-step process of building SADCC. Experience here in the region as well as elsewhere underscores the vital necessity of formulating a long-term regional industrial strategy, a plan allocating industries to every member country in the framework of growing regional trade. If there is no longterm industrial strategy, the interests that control the textile industries say in Zimbabwe, Botswana will put pressure on both governments to persuade them to help develop the textile business in their own country regardless of the other country's needs and potentials. This will inevitably lead to the kind of conflict you mentioned. Parenthetically, I would emphasize the need for research on the role of transnational corporate interests in this conflict. The textile industry in Zimbabwe is not owned by the Zimbabwean people, but it is run by transnational affiliates. The British firm, Lonhrho, which is also the largest non- mining finance house in South Africa, dominates the textile business in Zimbabwe. I don't know who owns the textile business in Botswana. One of the questions that has been raised in Zimbabwe is whether the textile factories in Botswana are simply shipping up semi-processed textiles from South Africa for the final touches by Botswana labour. Research can answer this kind of question. The answer could be found by a bilateral commission between Botswana and Zimbabwe that met regularly and looked at all these problems. Meanwhile, SADCC member countries are developing a regional industrial strategy which will identify the possible complementary industries each country could build in the next two decades to initiate the process of regional industrial transformation. We have to talk about a long-term strategy. We cannot limit the debate to day-to-day conflicts. Within the framework of a long-term industrial strategy, it might be agreed that Zimbabwe would develop the steel industry for the regional market while Botswane would build a viable textile industry. Then Zimbabwe might have to limit expansion of textile industry in exchange for the development of its steel industry. Such agreements can only be reached after a careful evaluation of all the possibilities within the framework of a long strategy, accompanied by day-to-day negotiations on a bilateral basis between the two countries. The railway issue raises a very interesting question. I think you are all aware that the new government in Zimbabwe under the Lancaster House Agreement had to take over a state machinery which was set up by and riddled with civil servants carried over from the previous ruling group. That was even more true in parastals like the railways. It is not so easy to restructure these governing structures. The government could not just sack the personnel because if it did, it would cost a lot of money in the form of pensions, etc. So the government had to set up almost parallel structures in the Ministries and gradually replace the old-line civil servants. Those civil servants, meanwhile, had all the crucial information about the government at their finger tips. One deputy Minister said to me in 1981, we don't even know what parastatals are in our portfolio; sometimes we find that the civil servants have re-appointed all the Board members of a parastatal, and they didn't even tell us about it. You are aware of the complexity of governments. Here, we are talking about a country with a population of about 8 million people and a long history of control by minority-ruled government run by these same old civil servants. They are not giving it up easily. A number of factors complicate the railway situation. I think these are being used to exacerbate the problem you mentioned. First, the Board of Directors of the railway is still run by the leading representatives of transnational corporate financial interests. The new government has begun to get control over it in recent months and to change its structure. They realised that the decisions being made are not necessarily in the best interests of Zimbabwe, but the problem was how to get control of it. Secondly, the majority of workers in the dominant rail road union historically was White. Africans were restricted mainly to lower paid labour and manual work. Their union is now pressing for upgrading of their members. Perhaps it would help to discuss the issue of training Batswana railroad workers with their union. These problems must be sorted out in Zimbabwe on a step-by-step basis. Your government should just keep putting pressure to get the necessary cooperation. It is necessary to discuss these questions at the highest level. There is a somewhat parallel situation at the University. If you will bear with me, 1 will tell you a little bit of our experience there. The university was established in 1953, under a charter to the Queen. It still has the picture of the Queen sitting in the Council room. At independence, the university was a small institution of a thousand students. Government introduced a policy to increase the university population to five thousand by 1985. Professor Kamba, the first Black Principal in the university's history, initially became a Vice-Principal under a recently appointed White, a former colonial administrator. Every head of department was a professor with tenure as head for life. Whites, the same old professor (with the exception of myself and one or two other people). Once Professor Kamba became principal, at the end of 1981 he set up committees and got discussion going on the need for democracy in the university. He finally persuaded 52 out of 56 professors to agree to resign as heads of departments. Now we have an increasing number of African lecturers, appointed from among the 16 000 Zimbabwean University graduates, many of them trained abroad during UDI. Many of them had been university lecturers elsewhere. Some taught in your university here. Now they have returned, Some of them have become new heads of departments. It took two years. People at the university are supposed to be intellectuals, not irrational. Nevertheless, we have had to carry on struggling to try to restructure, change the inherited university institutions and, at the same time, to teach 5 times as many students. In a sense the university is a microcosm of the national society. Just multiply the university experience to the government level. You are the people who are familiar with government. You are aware of the fact that changing government structures is not easy. When the going gets rough at the university, we go to Professor Kamba, and he can intervene and help. It takes time. Sometimes it is very frustrating. But one keeps at it. What I am saying is that you should understand - and I am sure you do understand how hard it is to change the government structure under the constraints that the Lancaster House Constitution imposes. Add to these facts that the transnational corporations dominate 70% of the assets in the modern productive sector. That is an area the government is just barely beginning to touch. The government don't control the parastatals and the private sectors. They still make their own decisions, often without regard to government concerns. I do want to emphasize, though, that if a bilateral commission can be set up and can function between the two countries, then this may be going to the top quickly on important issues. Other regional coordinating groups, including the Council For Mutual Economic Assistance (that is the one in Eastern Europe), have found that governments may agree on overall strategy perspectives, but those have to be implemented by bilateral commissions between each country which solve these day-to-day problems on a step-by-step basis. Those commissions have to be active They can't just meet once every six months and go away. They have to function on an ongoing basis. They may also include the university people. Sometimes they ask university people to conduct research on particular problems. The underlying principle on which these bilateral commissions operate is that whatever step is taken must be mutually beneficial to both sides. Let me mention one thing some of us are trying to do at the university level in which we would appreciate your government's assistance. We are trying to set up a series of seminars next year to look at research relating to how to develop contractual relations, bilateral relations, betweeen SADCC member.countries to solve some of these questions. We hope that government and university participate together to look at what might be called the main areas, the "commanding heights" of the region. First of all, how can SADCC government exert control over the transnationals which dominate their basic industries? How can they work together to answer some of the very questions which you have raised? Secondly, how can member governments achieve sufficient control of the trading sector to establish cooperative relations between the participating States, to develop trade links needed to make industries developed according to a long term regional strategy, viable. Thirdly, how do you deal with financial institutions on a regional basis to facilitate trade and payments within the region? We have funds to start this series of regional seminars. The heads of the Law Faculty and the Economics Department in the University of Zimbabwe are trying to get them started. We hope people from all countries will participate. If you have any suggestions or proposals we would like to hear them. There are many of these problems. They are not easy to solve. We should try to involve the universities of the region together with the governments in solving them. COMMENT: Mr Chairman, about this problem of transnational corporations. In their own developed countries, they have strict rules concerning production. These multinational companies come to the Third World countries and build factories with no pollution control. We have the problem in this country, especially in Selebi Phikwe where you have no pollution control, the mine is closing down and we will be left with people who will be suffering from the pollution problem. How do you think we can find a solution for that? My second question concerns government participation in the economy. / think the government has tried, but we have got the worst part of it. When they saw that the Gaborone Mall was owned by private companies, they tried to make this BDC thing work, but now / think the best thing is to make a new circular to erase this BDC. Although the original concept of the BDC made sense, now what we are actually saying is that BDC is a government by itself. You can see that Selebi Phikwe is owned by the BDC, This Mall was given to the government free at that time and was sold to the BDC at P5, now the'BDC is selling it at P40 per metre and nobody is buying.

The government must follow its procedure by reclaiming this plot, but it is falling to do so which is their own procedure because the BDC is a parastatal organisation. / think at this present moment, our intervention in economy is on the wrong side of the thing from what we thought. The I ast question, still on this subject, is that the current Botswana Telecommunications Corporation, Mr Chairman, is also running contrary to what it is supposed to do. We, the people of this country, are now suffering more with Telecommunications than before, when Botswana had Post and Telegrams. I am sure you know the problems Mr Chairman. Thank you. ANSWER: You are quite right that the transnational corporations in their home countries often face much stricter rules and regulations than they do in the Third World. In the Third World the colonial government simply didn't try to control them. Since independence, many African governments have been so eager to attract foreign companies that they said, well, we will let the question of pollution go by the board. It is not only a question of pollution. Governments don't tax transnational corporations because they are trying to attract them. They may ignore the fact that the workers' conditions are inadequate because they don't want to scare them away. As I said, however, in that competition African governments cannot defeat South Africa. When we held the workshops in Zimbabwe last June on transnational corporations, we emphasized that SADCC countries should agree on minimum conditions to which these companies must conform before they could come in. Those conditions should include adequate pollution control as well as an adequate tax structure and other things. You mentioned pollution as one area in which most governments here in Southern African countries have not begun to demand the standards that are imposed by the developed capitalist countries. To know to what rules transnationals conform elsewhere requires information. I can find out more about any transnational corporation operating here in South Africa by going to libraries in the US than in any library in this region. The United States, in the 1930s, established a State Exchange Commissioner, mainly to protect the American stock investors. The Commissioner requires far more information from transnational corporations and their investments in Southern Africa than you ask from those companies here. We need that information. We need to know what they are doing elsewhere, what they pay in the way of taxes, what they are doing to control pollution and all aspects of their activities. One of the proposals that came out of our workshop last June - a very simple one - is that every SADCC country should pass a law requiring transnational companies with investments here to provide the government with all information they give to any agency elsewhere in the world. If every SADCC government filed that information with their Companies Registry and with SADCC Headquarters here in Botswana, then whenever researchers wanted to know something about that company and the way it is operating they would have access to it. It is not a difficult law to draft, it could easily be done. We are trying to encourage the government to introduce it in Zimbabwe. It isa simplestep and it could make a lot of difference. There is a lot we don't know about transnationals or the conditions they are meeting elsewhere which they should be meeting here. For example, take the issue of taxation. Southern African governments impose very low effective taxes. In Zimbabwe the effective tax rate on corporations is about 22% to 25% of profits, though the published rate with the surcharge is 51,7%. This ignores the fact that double taxation agreements make it possible for Zimbabwe to increase the effective taxes on these companies and they will simply pay less taxes in the United States or the United Kingdom. Really, governments subsidize the United States or the United Kingdom governments by these low tax rates - the companies do not benefit. These are the kinds of issues I think we need to explore, the Southern African govern- ments should establish a floor under the conditions on which these companies invest in the region. They should insist on getting information so that they can enforce appropriate conditions throughout the region.

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BOTSWANA ECONOMIC ANALYSIS WITH PARTICULAR REFERENCE TO RURAL AREAS By Mr M. Hubbard [Lecturer], University of Botswana In this brief presentation I want to compare and contrast crops and cattle production in Botswana in recent years and look at some of the policy issues to which they have given rise. To begin with, we must bear in mind that in the last decade Botswana's population and economy have grown more rapidly than ever before. The population has increased almost half (from 0,6 to 0,9 million) and the urban areas have almost doubled in size (from some 60 000 urban dwellers in 1971 to almost 120 000 ten years later). At the same time the number of people formally employed for wages and salaries more than doubled (from about 41 000 in 1972 to 84 000 in 1980). Botswana's growth decade meant more jobs and more money for investment available in the hands of both government and the private sector. But urbanisation has drawn the most vigorous people to towns; the poor and the poorest are left in the rural areas. Furthermore, job creation has not kept pace with the increasing numbers looking for jobs. Some 19 600 school leavers become available for employment annually but only some 9 500 formal jobs are being created annually (J. Peat "Employment Creation: Problems and Policies" p.5 paper presented to the seminar - Botswana's Economy since Independence, September, 1981. National Institute of Research and Economics Department - University of Botswana). At the same time farming production has grown very considerably. The data in Table 1 on the next page indicate that production of the chief grains grown inBotswana (sorghum and maize) has shown no definite tendency to increase in the non-freehold farm area; the same applies to the area planted to all crops. On the freehold farms the crop situation is hardly more encouraging (Table 3) though the 1981 figures may represent a good response to higher Botswana Agricultural Marketing Board prices. By contrast, cattle numbers and take-off numbers have expanded markedly over the same period, with take-off per head of production on a slightly rising trend (Table 2) despite the rapid population growth. Although these data must be treated with caution (particularly the earlier figures see the notes to the tables) they suggest that crop farming has not responded to rapid economic growth whereas cattle production has. What are the reasons and the consequences? (See Tdbles 1, 2 and 3 on pages 118 and 119). The reasons have to do with the relative attractiveness of crops and cattle. It Is wellknown that our climate favours livestock raising rather than crops in most years. Furthermore the commercial payability of cattle relative to crops rose from Independence until the late 1979s when Botswana Agricultural Marketing Board prices were increased sharply. Perhaps most importantly the process of economic growth, urbanisation and rising salaries and wages has probably itself further increased the relative attractiveness of cattle production: [i] crop production suffers more than does cattle production from the withdrawal of vigorous labour. Cattle thereby become more a convenient and viable supplementary activity to wage and salary employment and therefore attract an increasing proportion of households' rural investments,

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TABLE 3 Freehold Farm Crop Production: Maize and Sorghum Total Area Planted (Ha) to Maize and Sorghum 4272 3794 4000 9 700 1968/69 1970/71 1979 1981 Sorghum and Maize Production [Tonne] 4626 2 165 1 990 6800 SOURCE: J.B. Opschoor 1981:23 (See note to Tables 1 and 2) Drawing on Freehold Farm Survey 1971. Agricultural Statistics 1968/69 Livestock and Crop Survey 1979 -plus 1981 Botswana Agricultural Satistics. All Published by Ministry of Agriculture.

[I1 crop production will compete for labour against increasing wages and salaries. Even if the prospects for finding paid employment are poor it makes sense to come to town to look for work if employment pays so much better, in the hope that one will be lucky enough to find it. The direct consequence of this growing imbalance is that poorer people use less fully their main and often only resource: the arable lands, while their numbers increase apace. Turning to the associated policy issues, by the later 1970s it had become clear that manufacturing, services and other urban activities were not going to provide the jobs which people were looking for in increasing numbers, so ways of enabling higher incomes had to be found. The Lipton report (1978) saw agriculture as the key sector for productive employment and recommended that agricultural development be in the direction of the skilled, labour-intensive family farm, integrating high-yielding crop production with intensive cattle management for draught, milk and meat (p.77) National Development Plan V adopted the twin objectives of employment generation and rural development: Arable Land Development Programme and the Financial Assistance Policy were born. The first point that needs emphasising concerning Arable Land Development Programme is the size and difficulty of its task, namely, to dynamise the sector to be the chief generator of future incomes for the poor is madness unless productivity levels can be raised greatly. This brings us to the Arable Land Development Programme package itself. Evidence from Botswana's Agricultural Research is that improved management (timely planning and weeding in particular) would make the single largest contribution to raising productivity. The Arable Land Development Programme packages of subsidised loans for marks and cultivators, drought power, water tanks, fencing and destumping -are designed firstly to improve management (row planting makes weeding and fertilisation easier but makes little difference without them; water tanks enable farmers to remain more easily at their lands); secondly to enable farmers to fence their crops against damage by livestock; thirdly to extend the land under cultivation. Arable Land Development Programme has been a carefully and broadly designed policy including not only the farmer investment packages, for which it is best known, but also measures to improve marketing infrastructure and the availability of farming inputs. The problems into which Arable Land Development Programme has run will no doubt bring the policy into disrepute among many. But critics must bear in mind that firstly it has been launched into what may turn out to be the worst drought in twenty years and secondly that it has been given the task of reversing a historical trend. Both of these mean that quick results are not possible. The chief problem emerging is the lack of productive use of the implements and drought power, and therefore an imminent debt repayment burden upon farmers which they cannot meet out of extra or existing farming income. To the extent that this is a temporary problem caused by drought it can be met by delaying farmers' repayments (re-scheduling the debt) or providing a temporary drought subsidy. But if it is the result of an over-estimation by the Arable Land Development Programme planners of the benefits to farmers of the implements and drought power then re-consideration of both the inputs packages themselves and of the extension back up to farmers using them will be needed, with careful re-assessment of their payability within the circumstances of each farmer. Any proposed extension of the package to include fertilisers will need to be assessed and monitored in the same thorough manner.

For the long term, the main problem with Arable Land Development Programme as it presently stands is that it is being relied upon as the main policy to raise agricultural incomes and yet is aimed only at arable farming. If present trends in the economy continue, then raising the incomes of smal farmers is going to have to involve enabling them to acquire a viable stake in the cattle economy and building the links between cattle and crops. As a first move in this direction I suggest Arable Land Development Programme and communal Tribal Grazing Land Policy should be married into a single planning effort for the following reasons: i The target groups of both policies are the same. ii Mixed farming is the most viable farming system to which small farmers can aspire: the increasing amount of mixed farming observed in the lands areas in Kweneng and Kgatleng is strong evidence. The present separation of communal Tribal Grazing Land Policy from Arable Land Development Programme planning shifts the focus from mixed farming. For example, with a marriage of the two policies, provision of adequate drought power for arable productions becomes a concern with establishing a small but viable herd adequate for this purpose but generating additional income for the household in milk and meat. With the present exclusively arable orientation drought power provision has become a package (donkeys or oxen) which may be the most efficient way of overcoming the drought power problem but does not encourage mixed farming. Two additional remarks on Arable Land Development Programme. Firstly, there has been discussion of what the correct target group for Arable Land Development Programme should be, trying to define the lower and upper limits in terms of asset holdings. I fear that much concern with setting the boundaries of the target group precisely reflects a lack of confidence in the ability of the extension service to communicate the needs of farmers and would-be farmers. These needs vary from one household to another according to their asset holdings, farming abilities and aspirations. Within the general orientation to low income households rigid cut-off points are not required; flexibility and tailoring of each farmer's package to his or her situation are required. This rests heavily on extension support. Similarly, any successful effort to get Arable Land Development Progamme through to the very poor will depend on gearing extension to this task. Secondly, in striving towards Arable Land Development Programme's goal of self-sufficiency in basic grains and legumes it will probably have to be recognised that in drought years this is impossible to achieve. Future arable planning should include coordinated drought strategy covering both consumer needs (the strategic grain reserve) and producer needs (ready access to credit). Turning now to the cattle industry, I want to make only a couple of points and leave others to be raised in the discussion. Firstly, regarding export markets, these have been extremely unstable in recent years. As with most commodities, beef prices rose rapidly in 1979/80 but fell from 1981. A stronger market is predicted for 1983. But with the beef market, movement is further complicated by beef production cycles in the industrialised countries and any forecasts for the short to medium term are risky. The long term market prospects for our type of beef seem good: meat consumption increases with rising income levels and lean meat is increasingly in demand relative to fat meat. For Botswana much will depend on what takes place within the European Economic Community. In recent years the European Economic Community has been generating increasing surpluses of beef which it has dumped on foreign markets. Thus while we have steadily secured better entry conditions for our beef into the European

Economic Community under Lome I and Ii, we find ourselves increasingly limited to EEC owing to EEC dumping. Should the EEC's present "Common Agricultural Policy" be relaxed to allow free entry of beei imports we might have to sustain lower prices but market opportunities would probably increase. As regards internal policy the key issue in processing and marketing right now is the opening of the Maun Abattoir. The main talking point is what prices suppliers to the new abattoir should be paid since it will be selling in different markets than Lobatse does. I think that, particularly in order to enable sound planning of marketing, the Maun price should be linked to the Lobatse price. The other topical issue to do with the Maun Abattoir concerns the future of Botswana Livestock Development Corporation. Perhaps this and policy issues in cattle production (TGLP particularly) can be raised in the discussion.

COMMENTS & ANSWERS Botswana Economic Analysis with Particular Reference to Rural Areas COMMENT: Thank you Mr Hubbard. You have very strongly pointed out the problems of some of the policies that we would like to enunciate and implement such as the TGLP, the first communcal areas and / have heard you say something about the wisdom of those policies. Can you comment on that, the TGLP, the first communal areas. You have also spoken about the hesitant steps taken in ALDEP, could you also say what you mean by that? ANSWER: Policy formation is a dynamic process, particularly where the problem being tackled is a major one as in the case of rural development. Policies have to proceed step by step taking account of the inevitable mistakes. Thereby the nature and direction of policies change. Thus debates over the wholesale rejection or acceptance of policies as they appear in any plan at any time are often not fruitful. An example would be to identify TGLP with the 1975 White Paper (Government Paper No. 2 of 1975) which, in the light of the actual experience with the policy, is now of little relevance tothe policy's future. A step by step approach in implementing ALDEP does not mean that it should be hesitant: on the contrary, firm and courageous steps may be essential, such as building in a cattle component coordination with communcal TGLP. COMMENT: Mr Chairman, I would like to make a few observations. Looking at the column on crops, one who knows the climatic conditions of Africa generally and of Southern Africa in particular, would understand why the figures have to be what they are. As you said, Mr Speaker, you are new. You could have looked at, say, 1965 and you would have seen what the situation was then regarding crops and cattle. There are some improvements after 1966 and our graph, as you see, goes up from 1969-72; of course 1973 was a bad year. In the South East cattle died as well but this area is not an area of cattle concentration and therefore it does not seem to affect the other graph which you like very much. This is because South East does not have that number of cattle. Now, you look at 1977/78, and the end of 1978 was very bad, the beginning of another drought, but that does not mean the crops were not raised. You notice that your figure there is 260 which to me would imply that it was going up except for the drought years. As I said, from 1966 it was going up gradually but there were bad years like 1973. 1978 was a very very bad year, we went down then. When you come to cattle industry, you will of course see a different case. Grass on which cattle might just manage after the rains, is only good for cattle and may be too poor for crops. Therefore as / was just saying, some of us would understand this type of problem. But when you look at 1981, you notice that the figure there is 270. My conclusion is that except for the drought years, your graph actually goes up. I am not sure whether you will agree with me there. To me this would mean that there has definitely been some improvement as far as arable agriculture is concerned. With regard to ALDEP, 1981 was a pilot scheme and all the reports I know were definitely positive, otherwise ALDEP would have been discontinued, the pilot scheme was a resounding success. Obviously that report does say which areas we have to try and improve upon, but the results of the pilot scheme were very very positive. Now, row planting we regard as one of the most important components of all arable agriculture, not just ALDEP. I am surprised that one could doubt the importance of row planting. Many experiments have been carried out and there are a number of reasons for encouraging row planting. It makes it easier, amongst other things, to weed, to apply manure, to distribute the seeds, it is very economical, etc. I am not trying to lecture as someone is saying, I am defending a proven method. As / said, the results of the pilot scheme were positive. 1981/82, which was supposed to be the first year of ALDEP, I agree with you was a very bad year. First of all, not everybody got the sort of assistance he/she should have got. Some of them did .not even plough because the rains were very poor and I thought this was understandable. Those who did something, particularly in the South, got more results than those who did not use the ALDEP method because in ALDEP we stress the importance of row planting, proper management and so on. I personally went around to see the difference between the fate of those who had ploughed with ALDEPandthose who have not, even in a drought year like this. But the reason for few farmers coming up and applying for this scheme was obvious and this would have been the first year of ALDEP. Weather conditions in Africa are unpredictable. / would welcome any suggestions for the improvement of ALDEP bu as a concept we think it must be accepted and carried out. Stepping in a small way is whatALDEPis meant for, for small farmers and so on. I am going to speak on this tomorrow. May I recommend to you an article by Mr Kites entitled "small is beautiful". about farming. It is a scheme very similar to this one and I will be surprised it if was not copied from our ALDEPproduct. I agree with you as far as our meat markets are concerned. We have had people coming forward and saying "why don't you sell to us". I am talking about African states, our neighbours and so on. Our experience has been that some of them are not liquid. They do not have money. There is another problem which you also mentioned and that is the meat dump by EEC; when we talk business with any of these countries in Africa they would like us to sell them this meat at the same price at which they get it from EEC. It is subsidized so we could not do that. So far, things have gone on very well. Just to indicate how much EEC is taking this year, we hope to sell something like 1 400 tonne. This is still below our quota with the EEC. Things would be so much better of course if the EEC was not dumping this meat in other markets. On the question of costs, just recently we announced an increase for the first of January and we cannot foresee any problem. We have paid a bonus. I do not want to be tracked into discussing the Maun Abattoir. I know there has been publicity as far as the Maun Abattoir is concerned in the local and private papers. I do not know where they got their information from. CHAIRMAN: Could you please address yourself to the issue concerning this House. You seem to be defending the Ministry of Agriculture. COMMENT: No, no! lam far from doing so. I was merely commenting on some of the issues which you have raised. The theme is very very clear but I am saying there are reasons why produce had to go down in certain areas. COMMENT: Mr Chairman, the speaker has just been analysing ALDEP seeing all the loopholes although he does not want to be dragged into trying to give us an alternative. I would just like to ask the speaker if in our geographical position and in the currentsituation he sees any alternative to ALDEP as far as our conditions are concerned or any improvementof the structure that we have in relation to drought and in relation to the paying capacity of the small man. The other things is the TGLP. You did not want to be involved in some alternative but we tried and we are still trying. i mean we have seen some mistakes in TGLP. TGLP is a long term project which we are trying to make available to some farmers. Does he see anything that can increase our cattle in. dustry, taking into consideration our climatic conditions and our typical failures with the present TGLP. COMMENT: What / want to find out from you Mr Hubbard concerns one of the problems facing ALDEP namely the fact that the capacity to repay had been over estimated. You are therefore suggesting that notwithstanding the drought that has set in and has created further problems, it may well be that people who are assisted are unable to pay back as much as they ought to. Have you found that from studies or research from the Ministry itself? The second question is that you only peripherally mentioned the problems of the first development in livestock management. Apart from the small man, exactly who is likely to be squeezed out or deprived of these assets because the area may now become too small; if we have commercial farms and then livestock management, what area are we talking about? Is it the areas that are already in use or is it an estimation of what the problems could be? In other words, I am really trying to find out if there are practical problems which have already been seen of is it just summarisiog the problems that could arise.? ANSWER: Starting off with the question of an alternative to ALDEP in relation to drought and the position of the small farmer, I think the question of droughtwas probably not sufficiently considered in the original ALDEP planning, particularly as regards repayment of loans. Under Botswana's harsh conditions, when drought hits crops fail and farmers require short term assistance, just as grain stocks are important to provide for consumers. Regarding alternatives to ALDEP for small tarmers, all aspects of development in the communcal areas need to be considered in redirecting ALDEP - infrastructure, small industry and livestock. Are there better ways in which the development of these could be linked to ALDEP? This is difficult - I have already suggested a link to communal TGLP. In the case of larger, commercially oriented farmers the main issue is usually prices. Here the recommendation of the Economic Opportunities Commission to raise Botswana Agricultural Marketing Board produce price to its sales price level by direct subsidy is to be welcomed. The impact on marketed output will need to be watched. Turning to TGLP and the small farmer, the communal not the commercial areas are the issue (except as regards rezoning). COMMENT: Do you mean that with the TGLP communal areas you cannot make any impact before the big .cattle owners in the communal areas move out and leave the areas for small men, so that something can be done? ANSWER: No, I mean rather that what happens in the commercial areas does not much affect the smaller cattle owners. Practically it looks very much like the hope of the 1975 White Paper, that large cattle owners will move out to the commercial areas, has not and probably will not be realised on a large scale. Future planning should take that into account. Returning to the subject of alternatives for raising the incomes of the poor, there are a couple of proposals which merit more discussion than they have relceived to date in Botswana. Both have been put forward by N. Reynolds (SALDRU Working Paper No. 41 of 1981). The first is an employment guarantee scheme in which employment at the rpinimum wage on public works is guaranteed to people in the rural areas. A recent report in the South African press states that this scheme is going to be widely implemented in the Ciskei. Clearly the success of the schemes hinges upon the administrative capacity to set them up and manage the desigri, materials, tools and work itself. The second proposal is to create communal land companies. Very briefly, the idea is that the land assets of the community become the property of a company in which all households in the community are equal shareholders. Those members who use more than their share of grazing or arable land would pay the company a rent, part of which would be paid to those members using less than their share, the rest to contribute towards public works in the community. The main advantage in the "community companies" proposal is that it will enable the poor to secure a permanent foothold on rural assets. The difficulty of course is to secure the necessary level of community cooperation and responsibility in nanaging their assets. COMMENT: Thank you Mr Chairman. / was going to say that the speaker has not said much about rural industrialisation, he said that Botswana has got limited options. Has rural industrialisation found hope in Botswana? COMMENT: Mr Chairman, our learned gentleman said we cannot become self sufficient in food production so long as we have dry land farming. So I want to know from him whether we can only become self sufficient when we embark upon irrigation, In fact, / want to know what alternative does he suggest? COMMENT: Mr Chairman, / would like to know from the speaker what suggestion he can give us regarding the indications that he has given on the board, on our crop production, bearing in mind that our rains are unpredictable and therefore production may not be as successful as we would like. Would he not entertain the idea held by some people that perhaps the method of promoting crop production is a sort of method which takes a round-about way. Would he not see the utilisation of moisture at the time it is available as the view that should be followed i.e. maximising the usage of faster implements like tractors. One of course has to bear in mind the cost effects and the number of people who would be affected. Basically I am saying this because I feel we should try and utilise as much as we can the little available moisture at the time it is available. What I am trying to find out from you is whether you could not agree with the school of thought that to concentrate much more on big hectares or big areas and utilising tractors would perhaps be the right course to follow? ANSWER: If I could just tackle the question about rural industrialisation first of all. I had not intended to say anything on that because I thought in the time I had available I would rather concentrate on the crop and cattle side. No, I do not think at all that it is a forlorn hope by any means, especially since the Financial Assistance Policy which is obviously the major thrust towards promoting small industries at the present time seems to be in full swing. Of course, it is early days to know what is going to come out of that. As with ALDEP, the real test of the policy will be its impact on production plus the ability to repay the debt. Turning to the question of self sufficiency and of the dry land farming, I did not mean to create the impression that self sufficiency is not possible on the basis of dry land farming; I had meant to communicate that I think in bad drought years we cannot hope to be self sufficient in food crops from dry land farming alone. I would hope that in years to come it will be possible to move towards self sufficiency on the basis of dry land farming but I think it is beyond hope that we can do it in drought years as well. Especially given the situation at the present time, but in most years we have a deficit of something like 50% in our grain requirements. Concerning utilising the moisture in the soil at the right time by introducing instru- ments which can prepare the soil rapidly i.e. tractors and their implements, these can clearly become the option of larger scale commercial farmers e.g. in Barolong but are also hired widely by smaller farmers. In the Southern Kgatleng for example most fields ploughed this year were tractor ploughed. There are clear advantages, but tractorisation is probably best left to the market to regulate: government tractor hire schemes tend to be very expensive and there is no point in promoting tractor purchase by people who have not the means to cope with the high costs of purchase, use and maintenance. COMMENT., Talking about tractorisation, / heard about Swaziland's "Ting Carby' what is the progress on this? The other thing is, talking about plentiful beef and the scarcity of it, there used to be talk about synthetic meat. What was that and what is the position about that? ANSWER: As far as the 'Ting Carby" is concerned, I have also hea-d about it but not recently. I believe the problem has been that it cannot compete with the imported tractors because it's rather slow and not very strong. As far as synthetic meat is concerned I think it is meat from soya beans you must be referring to. I do not think as far as beef is concerned this is likely to compete strongly in the way that aluminium does with copper or nylon does with cotton. I think it will be regarded certainly in terms of taste as an inferior product and meat is generally speaking a luxury item (except perhaps in South America). Even the sort of meat that we can produce which goes largely into manufacturing is still a relative luxury. COMMENT Mr Chairman, I would like Mr Hubbard to comment on the view held by some people that government is ,spending too much money on beef production rather than on crop production. Some people have argued tht after all, that is the money created by beef and government is not spending anything on beef. I would like you to comment on that and give us your view, since you have done research on cattle, / know you prefaced your remarks by saying you are a foreigner, but we have called you to come and give a critical analysis and you should not fear to criticise us. ANSWER: It is not a question ot spending too much on beef production but ot getting too little back by way of tax revenue in order to distribute fairly the costs of running a successful beef export industry. To export beef requires ever- increasing veterinary hygiene standards. We cannot compromise on veterinary standards or on abattoir hygiene. During a Foot and Mouth disease outbreak or in the quarantine period thereafter these are costs imposed on communities which are not allowed to market or even move cattle 'because the EEC veterinarians have closed their veterinary district or declared it a buffer zone. Cordon fences themselves can be a social cost when they run through communities. Now it is not possible to make each beneficiary of beef exports (i.e. the cattle owners) pay these costs directly and individually since they are in the nature of public goods. The only way to recover the costs is by taxing the beneficiaries. The tax revenue should be sufficient to provide in addition some recompense to people who suffer as a result of the beef export industry but do not benefit from it; e.g. the costs of the P50 scheme in Ngamiland. In four of the last five years government expenditures related to the industry have exceeded revenues from it (excluding the controversial EEC levy rebate). (See "Report of the PresIdential Commission on L-conomic Opportunities", Table 5.3.1). In most industrialised countries, farming is heavily subsidized, the EEC is the prime example. But farming is a much smaller proportion of national production than in Botswana and is not so heavily concentrated in one form of production. Nor are the benefits so concentrated that the cattle industry should more than pay its way in the economy. COMMENT. i would like to follow that up again. Mr Hubbard, when you started with your graph, you said that as far as policies are concerned there was much emphasis on dealing with the crop production but as it is reflected by your graph here, it was just lip-service, we did not really do much. And we have critics, most of whom come from the University; it is not the professors but the students, although I do not know whether they get their ideas from the professors. But certainly, when we have these symposiums, seminars or open discussions, we do get these critics saying that government talks so much about rural development but in fact does very little. I would like you to comment on that statement, whether you also think that here there is so much talk about rural development yet so much expenditure goes to urban development. ANSWER: Well, I would not like to go on record as having said that these figures demonstrate that government has been double talking. This is certainly not what I am suggesting. I think if one looks a bit at our experience of the last decade one sees the pattern which has occurred during periods of rapid economic growth in third world countries with regard to urbanisation but particularly with regard to traditional industries and their position in relation to others. It has been argued today that there has been an upward trend in the area planted (Table 1, page 00). But it is not a strong trend. Over all it is a relatively stagnant situation, reflecting above all the grip of the economic forces within which Botswana has been caught in the last decade. I mean in Botswana's situation there are certain things policy can do and certain things policy can not do and if you have a mineral-led growth explosion there are certain things which are going to follow in its wake and only after a certain time are you going to take stock of them. So let us finish that one. I What I would like to go on record as saying here is that towards the end of the 1970s the employment question became crucial as far as policies are concerned and clearly this remains the crucial issue for the future stability and prosperity of all Batswana. Furthermore, in Botswana's situation rural employment creation is paramount. COMMENT BY His Excellency The President, Dr 0. K.J. Masire: Mr Chairman and Mr Hubbard, I found this very depressing. It was not the presentation that was depressing but just the hard facts of life. That the situation is what it is in spite of all that is being attempted to be done. I disagree with my colleague who says the figures show any sign of improvement. To me they just go from 78 to 32, to 30 to 6 to 34. It can hardly be said to be impressing and that is the total yield of all grains. I think our problem real/ly is twofold. it is a management problem and a wages problem. We have had the mines, we have had the government sector sucking in all the people who could be running farms. The managerial, supervisory staff have been drawn from the agricultural sector; therefore if we pour money into the input when the management level goes down, we can not nope to produce more than we have done in the past. If you pay a windowcleanerin Gaborone P90,00 and a lady who labours in the fields gets P10,00 if she is lucky, after the end of four laborious months with two or three bags, I think the situation is unacceptable. I have been engaged in farming for a pretty long time, some thirty or so years and I think I can say with confidence that taking one year with the other, we can be self sutficient in food grains but unfortunately there is a management crisis. With management crisis I do not mean just at the lands, I think it even applies in the agricultural sector. I have seen the quality of agricultural demonstrators whom I worked with when I started as a farmer and I have seen the quality of the demonstrator who has been put in circulation of late. The two are poles apart and the commitment on the latter is sadly lacking; unless we can do something about both these farmers and those who are supposed to be teaching the farmers the tricks of the trade, unless we can motivate or get some motivation somehow, I do not think we can go far. You spoke earlier of groups. I happen to have had a group in my former constituency, a group that was spoon fed. It was given everything except to have its mouth opened and food put in, I refer to the Selebalo Ranch Group. The whole American effort in agricultural development and group management came there. The water reticulation was done, camps were demarcated, the fence provided, the poles were just there to pick up, you did not need to go out far to get the poles, yet the group failed dismally. I have my Member of Parliament behind me and he will rise for that. At the same time we got money from the CDC or at least a promise for money to help people in the Molopo, and as often as I could get the chance to dash to those people, I did so to encourage them to form groups. I told them what was in the deal, that government was going to drill a borehole, government was going to case that borehole, government was goin.q to make money available from the National Development Bank as a loan for seven years, government was going to, together with them, fence their farm so that TGLP did not just mean the rich man's affair and nothing to do with other people, but I am afraid that when I left the constituency they were still always meeting but never doing anything. This is discouraging because when you deal with physical factors you know how to deal with them but when ycu deal with human factors it becomes very difficult, I think I generally agree with the various things you said except with two. First, these land companies; they may help Zimbabwe where there is a shortage of land, where 8 million people have less than the total area of Botswana. Here there is no shortage of land. If there is so much land and you are going to pay rent to somebody who does nothing, paying him to encourage him not to think because he looks forward to your rent, no, I think that would be disastrous because it would only encourage laziness, In an area where land is in short supply, in great demand and there is competition for it, who are those who take the right of others to use that land? Shouldn 't they make a return to these people? But I think if you feel those who use the land must pay rent, they must pay it to government, to the local authorities to provide the social services, not just topay the lazy man to go and drink beer. I can also see some weakness in public works which ensures everybody's employment because the first point I raised, that of management crisis, is not met. You will rally up people, dump them in a place or at a place and then what? They will be squabbling and fighting and drinking for very little work done. Yes, we have had experience of drought relief, where some people's whole day's work would be to pick up a pick and hold it. I have seen these Mohammedan and Islamic people having a bracelet with beads, counting them during the day. As he speaks to you he is passing them into a certain hole. I believe one of the MPs has one. You can see he is becoming prosperous, that he does not know what to do with his hands but to count beads. But I think already the mining sector and the government sector have distorted the market forces, the price that labour commanded. Now it is better at least because the mining sector and government sector demand some work to be done but when the primary theme becomes to just give employment, no matter what one has done at the end of the day, that I would say let us only do when we really have completely lost hope and there is nothing else that we can do. Those were the two aspects of your lecture which I have noted. Otherwise the picture is very gloomy and I think it is very challenging not only to the Ministry of Agriculture but to government and to the party as a whole. We ought to do something to change the situation. What is frustrating is that there is potential, we keep on hammering at the agricultural sector because it is one sector which can employ everybody in Botswana, yet this potential eludes us. It is like the Makgadikgadi, it has become a mirage. Let us hope one day when we get to the end of the mirage we shall find an Orapa full of diamonds.

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