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Botswana: Parliament Passes Foreign Affairs Budget
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Mmegi/The Reporter (Gaborone)
13 March 2008
Posted to the web 13 March 2008
Bame Piet
The Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation, Lieutenant General Mompati Merafhe, is not moved by the recent threat made by Libyan leader, Colonel Muammar Gaddafhi, that he might cut relations with African States that are opposed to the speedy establishment of a single African Union government.
Merafhe told Parliament yesterday that the January 2008 AU Summit in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia, established a committee of 10 heads of state and government, following deliberations of the AU ministerial committee charged with strategising about establishing a single government for the continent. Botswana is a member.
He said he recently addressed the All Party Caucus on the matter and the majority of member states of the AU are of the view that Africa's economic and political integration should be incremental as envisaged in the Abuja Treaty.
Merafhe said the ultimate goal of a union government can be realised if Africans share values such as democracy, good governance, respect for human rights, the rule of law, policy convergence in the economic, political and social spheres. The Africans also need to agree on minimum economic, political and social standards.
"I would like to assure this honourable committee that my ministry will do everything possible to ensure that our national interest and sovereignty are not compromised," he said, as he presented his ministry's P258,632,330 recurrent budget and the P64,084,000 development budget.
He said Botswana needs to establish friendly relations with as many countries worldwide as possible. Countries with which Botswana has diplomatic relations have increased from 101 to 119. Botswana has a total of 19 diplomatic missions around the world.
He said competition is tough and it is important for Botswana to constantly position herself strategically for development assistance resources, foreign direct investment, market access opportunities for Botswana goods, capacity building needs and international goodwill.
"And we cannot win this competition from the comfort of our homes," he stated. He said Batswana have benefited from diplomatic relations by way of scholarships from Australia, China, Cuba, Japan, India and Singapore to undertake short and long term training programmes in the fields of information technology, hospitality, entrepreneurship, technical education and medicine.
Merafhe announced the closure of the Swedish mission in Botswana planned for June this year but said the government respects that country's sovereign decision to redeploy resources in accordance with its current policy orientation and priorities.
"It is regrettable that following our country's graduation to middle income status, we have witnessed a significant decline in development assistance. It is not fair that we should be made victims of our own success," he said.
The departure of the Swedes follows last year's closure of the United States of America International Development (USAID) offices in Gaborone.
Merafhe said Botswana is still faced with challenges of economic diversification, employment creation, poverty eradication and the amelioration of the impact of HIV/AIDS for which the country needs development assistance.
The minister said last year the United Nations General Assembly adopted a resolution on a "moratorium on the use of the death penalty" which attracted more support than in the past.
He said that Botswana and other countries fought against the resolution. The move lacks international consensus but it has appeal to the foreign policy priorities of only a few states which wish to impose extra-territorial humanitarian laws on others. Some MPs were not happy that Zimbabwe continues to be a menace that has dented the image of the Southern African Development Community (SADC).
The Minister for Youth, Sports, and Culture, Moeng Pheto, urged his government to do more to help solve problems in Zimbabwe, to which Merafhe responded that strong nations such as the USA, Britain and Canada have voiced their concerns loudly but nothing has changed for the better. He said that Zimbabweans will solve the problem bedevilling their country.
The Minister for Minerals, Energy and Water Affairs, Ponatshego Kedikilwe, said he was not surprised that USAID relocated, saying that before the organisation came to Botswana there was stiff competition among African countries about who should host the offices.
He accused some sections of the international community of 'double standards' citing the recent diamonds meeting in Tel Aviv, Israel where they had to work hard to convince diamond dealers that Botswana seriously needed diamond beneficiation to fight unemployment and poverty. He said some lobby groups were adamant that the diamond trading centre should not be relocated to Botswana, while on the other hand the country is under pressure to have achieved the United Nations Millenium Development Goals. He urged government to invest in human resources, food production, power generation and water production.
The MP for Lobatse, Nehemiah Modubule, said the death penalty has not worked positively for Batswana and urged Christians to come out clearly to state their position on the issue. However, Merafhe was confident that Batswana support the death penalty and will continue to do so.
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The MPs expressed their dissatisfaction with the interference of Survival International in the affairs of Botswana. Parliament approved the foreign affairs budget.
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