The Voice (Francistown)
29 April 2008
opinion
Francistown — I think the real problem is that we are too needy as a nation and therefore food prizes and other economical pressures are dictated on us. I am seriously annoyed about Botswana's the lack of self-reliance.
Had a chat with some small-scale entrepreneurs this weekend especially in the food industry and was amazed how they even break even. Interestingly, because we are a peace-loving nation, we have not seen hawkers and food vendors' toitoing. These business people, like the rest of the population are hard hit by the cost of food, but we choose to keep quite and hope for the best. Actually, most vendors might be vulnerable and hopeless to an extent that their only hope is for the South Africans and others to do as much lobbying as possible.
In the nutshell, we can only hope their efforts bear fruit, as we watch from a distance. What could happen if the countries that have taken an active stand suddenly give us the cold shoulder because we seem to accept this? Don't you think that our dependency forces us to rely on others for our daily sustenance? How come we are still buying bread at ridiculous prizes? How come we you are still allowing your financier to charge you a ridiculous fees? How come business owners are able to get away with low service standards? How come organizations are still able to misinform customers and promise us pie in the sky and we still go back to buy from them? The answer is; they all know how easy it is to milk any Motswana. Half of the price fixings fabricated advertising and cheap service standards will not even be tolerated in Zimbabwe let alone South Africa, even small dots like Lesotho.
It is this mentality of hopelessness or 'goitlhoboga' that allows Batswana to be taken for a ride. I see it all the time because we complain to the wrong people. We are so ready to make noise in the shops, telling off the already unfriendly staff, which will simply do nothing about your problem. You go to a Bank and queue for hours and then you start annoying the teller, who is probably more tired than you. What do you think she/he can do? You go to the Police office and you are forced to recite your ordeal to ten different officers and you start complaining to the lady at the reception?
Our food prices are going up by the minute and the best we can do is to chat about it on the corridors and making this issue an icebreaker for meaningless conversations? Who is out there putting intense pressure on government to regulate this problem? Maybe we must realize that we are leaving on handouts, and then maybe we can have a voice.
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