University of Botswana lecturer, Log Raditlhokwa, has called on President Ian Khama and his ministers to open up to the public in order to advance economic development.

Addressing the BNPC-sponsored National Productivity Convention at Phakalane Golf Estate recently, Raditlhokwa said it was important for members of the public to have an idea of what the President was thinking in order to know where their input might be needed.

The theme of the conference was 'Turning Challenges into Opportunities: The Journey Continues'.

The outspoken lecturer noted that the fact that the President and some of his ministers and senior officials were from a military background would always arouse some amount of trepidation in people, which made it all the more important for the President to reach out to the public.

Raditlhokwa said effective communication was critical to imparting information for social and economic development. Addressing himself to recent remarks on discipline by the Vice President Mompati Merafhe, who is a former BDF commander, Raditlhokwa said the same comments might have been made in such a way that their contextual meaning would not be distorted.

Merafhe has been quoted as saying the government may enforce military-style discipline if people continue to behave in a socially unacceptable way.

In Raditlhokwa's view, the issue of discipline is often exaggerated; but under normal circumstances, there is nothing wrong with disciplinary measures being taken against deserving individuals.

There were major challenges in improving the quality of life of Batswana and Botswana's competitiveness at both regional and global levels, but as things stood now, the government dominated all major actors of the nation who could bring change.

"Hence the private sector, parastatals, Non-Governmental Organisations and labour movements lack (the) capacity to effect radical change in society," Raditlhokwa said, adding that the private sector actually depended on contracts from the government for its survival.

He criticised the government for actively encouraging the dependency syndrome not just for political expediency "but also because many of the political elite in the government have been dependent on government for too long.