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COMMUNITIES OF PRACTICE

ANSA-Africa is a project of the Economic Governance Programme, IDASA

Features

Keynote address by His Excellency Mr. Festus G. Mogae, to the National Congress of the Botswana Democratic Party Women's Wing
23 May 2007

Keynote address by His Excellency Mr. Festus G. Mogae, President of the Botswana Democratic Party to the National Congress of the Botswana Democratic Party Women's Wing:

Party Chairman and Vice President, Lt. Gen. S K I Khama; The Chairperson of the National Women's Wing Committee, Hon Botlogile Tshireletso MP and Members of your Committee; The Chairperson of the National Youth Executive Committee, Mr. Kefentse Mzwinila and Members of your Committee; Members of the Central Committee; Member of the Central Committee of SWAPO and Secretary for Research & Documentation of the Women's Council of SWAPO, Ms Mildred Jantjie; Chairpersons and Secretaries of all Party Structures; Distinguished Guests; Dear Democrats;

I am, once again, honoured to be given the privilege of addressing and opening the Congress of the Women's Wing of the Botswana Democratic Party. Your Congress is probably the most important event in your calendar of activities.

The fact that this is your first Congress, since the Party Congress approved your reformed Rules and Regulations, to require that only women participate in the making of decisions at your Congress, makes my honour all the greater. While you were right before in allowing a limited number of men to take part in your Congress, I am pleased that you have found it timely to now make the change.

It demonstrates the dynamism of our Party that our structures continue to evolve as circumstances require. I congratulate you on the reform. It is my hope that the Youth Wing will, themselves, soon see the need to emulate your example if they should feel that the time is right for them to do so.

Director of Ceremonies, the Congress is the time when the Women's Wing must take stock of their progress and that of the Party. It is a time when you must revisit the goals you set yourselves at your previous Congress. It is the time to evaluate the gains you have made, assess any outstanding challenges facing women in our country and make plans to overcome them. It is a time to reflect on the condition of our Party in the context of our country, and determine how much progress its Government has made in improving the lot of our people.

Even as you must deservedly pat yourselves on the back for the many accomplishments of our Party in Government, remember that your Congress is the time when women must identify the areas of development in which we are lagging behind, consider evolving challenges and anticipate future ones. It is the time to chart the way further forward for the women of our nation, and for our Party.

Prominent amongst your natural duties is to examine the respects in which women remain behind in their participation in the affairs of our country, and in positions of leadership. Use this Congress as a bi-annual platform for analyzing obstacles and opportunities for women, and women leaders. Use this Congress and future ones to explore new leadership and gender needs, and share personal, organizational and community experiences.

Use this Congress as a work in progress in the ever-urgent need to bring the girl-child on par with the boy-child, and our womenfolk on par with our men-folk. May you never forget that even as we men have no lesser a moral responsibility to ensure your equality with us in all respects, you must stay seized of the matter until the day you shall occupy your rightful place in society shoulder to shoulder with men. The optimum success of our Party and the development efforts of its Government depend on inclusive leadership models that leverage the potential and experience of all its human resources. The full and active participation of women in leadership is a pre-requisite for positive change and development in Botswana.

All, particularly men, must recognize that the upliftment of the lives of all our people, men and women and alike, would ensure the further development of our country and yield optimum results, not for women alone, but as much for men. Requisite to the maximization of these results is the complete parity of men and women. Let nobody think that it serves anybody for men to have greater access to opportunities than women, or for men to have more when women have less. There is more to be had by everybody when more participate in the production of that which we all need.

Some Achievements of Empowerment Efforts

Bagaetsho, my Government continues to do what realities and resources permit, to promote the equality of all, and to enhance the position of women in society. I have, at previous Congresses of your Wing and of the Party, kept giving you an assessment of the progress we have made in this respect. Unfortunately, not all the inequities of centuries past can be remedied overnight, but we continue to make significant progress, as I shall next attempt to show.

My Government has, since your last Congress and post the last general elections, achieved the special election to Parliament of 3 women out of 4 available slots. The number of women in Parliament has increased to 7, of whom 4 are Ministers, 1 an Assistant Minister, and 1 the Chief Whip of our Party and the other the Deputy Speaker. About 50% of our Permanent Secretaries, Deputy Permanent Secretaries and Directors of Departments are women. The Governor of our Central Bank, the Attorney General, one of her 2 Deputies, the Director of Public Prosecutions and her Deputy are women. For the first time we have a woman as a Deputy Speaker.

Of our 18 Ambassadors, High Commissioners and Consuls General, 8 are women. In addition to these, the number of women in positions of authority in both the public and private sectors continue to grow. We look forward to a time, not too far in the future I pray, when parity shall be reached. The empowerment of women is certainly a matter that remains high on our list of priorities as a country.

Fellow Democrats, we are not alone in the celebration of our enviable achievements in this particular. The world is watching, and joins us in keeping a sharp focus on the progress we are making. The following indices fortify me. The 2003 Human Development Report of the United Nations on Gender Equality ranks us 16th in the world, alongside Canada and Estonia, in terms of the total percentage of "females serving as legislators, senior officials and managers". According to this Report, the combined figure for women occupying senior leadership positions in our country as at 2002 was 35%. This places us ahead of the Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), including all of the current member states of the European Union. The OECD is made up of the most of the rich countries of the world.

In the same Report, we are listed amongst the handful of countries in which women constitute the majority of all people in professional and technical employment. Women employed in such capacities in our country amount to 52%.

In an index that measures the enrolment gap into schools between boys and girls, the United Nations Economic, Social and Cultural Organization (UNESCO), Education For All Monitoring Report for 2003/4 in their special focus on "Gender and Education For All- the Leap to Equality", singles out Botswana and Namibia in Africa as having achieved the perfect score of "1" in the Gender Parity Index (GPI).

The Report of the Exprian Grant Thornton International, a reputed and widely recognized international agency, ranked Botswana 7th in the Global Survey of Women in Senior Corporate Management. According to the Report, three quarters of Botswana companies have women in senior management positions, while just under a third of all senior managers in the country are women. In terms of international rankings, Botswana is placed 9th for the percentage of companies with senior female managers. Botswana and South Africa are ranked amongst the top in the world in both categories ahead of the USA, Canada and the European Union member states, included in the Survey.

As you can see, our progress has exceeded the fashionable quota of 30% representation of women in leadership positions. While we can justly be proud of these accomplishments, much remains to be done. It is not the responsibility of the Government alone to achieve the remainder of our goals. Men and women must make an effort to make their contribution. One area requiring a special effort if the numbers of women in positions of political leadership are to increase are the primary elections of our Party. The openness of the bulela ditswe system presents a unique opportunity for women in our Party to be elected as candidates for Parliament and Council.

I urge all men and women to make merit the only consideration in voting for candidates to be presented by the Party. With women being the majority of activists in our Party, there is no reason why the BDP should not have many women candidates for Parliament and Council in the 2009 general elections. Remember that unlike in other countries, some of them our neighbours, the Central Committee is powerless to increase women candidates outside the framework of primary elections. You will have to mobilize your resources to achieve a desirable proportion of women candidates at the next elections.

Director of Ceremonies, Ladies & Gentlemen, let it not be thought that our pre-occupation in this respect relates only to women and the girl child. Mine is a Government which believes in merit as the basis for advancement in all fields of endeavour. Our efforts on behalf of women and the girl child should not serve as a disincentive to hard work and success for men and the boy child. Our conscious assistance to women does not detract from the right of all, whether men or women, to rightfully gain the fruits of their success and efforts. The need to emphasize special assistance to women arises only in order to remedy historical imbalances which are evident to all.

In similar vein, I must urge that individual women should not leave all to the Government. They must, for their part, themselves make every effort to ascend to positions of leadership and authority through hard work and competitive performance in all they undertake. Let not the impression be created that they are any less capable than men to excel, for they are not.

I have dealt with this subject at some length, not because it is the only matter that is of importance to women, but because it must ever remain a necessary part of the agenda of all that we do in the development of our country and people. I now turn to other matters, themselves not less important.

The 2009 General Elections

The share of the popular vote garnered by our Party in the 2004 general elections was a little more than 50%. This won us 44 out of 57 Parliamentary seats representing about 77%, and 335 out of 490 Council seats or 68%. While these are overwhelming results by any standard, they are unsatisfactory when one considers that we garnered slightly over 50% of the popular vote. As the Secretary General of our Party never fails to report, this represents a continuing trend in the decline of popular vote our Party gets. Over time, the proportion of the voting public who vote for our Party is progressively declining.

I know that opposition parties delude themselves with tired claims that this means that their share of the vote is growing. While it is true if you speak of the opposition as a group of parties, it is not too alarming to us when you consider that the remaining number is divided amongst them as separate parties. In most countries which have more than two political parties, seldom does the winning party get as much as 50% of the total vote. Viewed in this way, we are not doing as badly as might be supposed and as is frequently claimed by the opposition parties.

Director of Ceremonies, it is in the nature of things that having ruled for as long as we have the number of people who vote for us might reduce over time. This would not signal that our support is eroding, for the decline might be due to a number of factors, one of which is that many might think there is no need for them to vote because they know that we will win anyway. Nevertheless, I am duly concerned. We all should be concerned. Our mandate is the stronger the higher the proportion of Batswana who vote for our Party.

While there is no reason to suppose, that the percentage of seats in Parliament that we occupy will decline any time in the near future, we cannot rely upon this assurance alone. We should want to command the highest voting numbers in the elections. We should work to attain this. We need to work to solidify the Party's support base, ahead of the country's 10th elections in 2009.

Party Unity

The unity of our Party is the place to start. The compelling duty to ensure this rests on all of us. I am pleased to report the almost total elimination of factions in our Party and the accomplishment of satisfactory unity. For the first time in many years, the elections at this Congress will take place without lobby lists, as will the National Congress in July. Candidates have campaigned for themselves as individuals without making reference to groups of candidates and speaking ill of their opponents. May we continue in this spirit.

Nevertheless, I must sound a note of caution. We must remain ever vigilant because there may be some isolated individuals amongst us who might get tempted to occasionally seek to advance group interests. Our Party has only one group, itself. The group is made up of structures provided for by its Constitution. Refuse to associate with any other grouping.

Unity in the Party must also exist at all levels. It must be exercised also in Cabinet, in Parliament, in Council. Members of Parliament and Councillors who were elected on the ticket of our Party must represent the interests of our Party and work in consonance with them in those institutions. Members of Parliament and of Councils must co-operate with the Government of the Party and promote its Programmes in Parliament and elsewhere.

No individual elected to Parliament or Council may represent their own interests, personal or otherwise, which are inconsistent with the interests of the Party as promoted by its Government. This is not a principle upon which we are prepared to compromise. I will keep repeating this message that anybody who seeks election on the ticket of the Party may NOT assume a role in opposition to his/her Party in either Parliament or Council.

Mobilization

The second requisite is to go out and mobilize your troops in the branches because it is only when they are up and running effectively that the Party can stand on its feet and be a power with which to reckon. We must aggressively seek out new members and register them. We must actively work to ensure that all who are eligible to vote in the next elections register to do so.

During the elections we must ensure that, unlike happened in 2004 when about 100,497 Party members did not vote, all vote in the forthcoming elections. When before then we have bye-elections, we all must rally to the locations concerned to help in the election effort. It bears repeating that this Party is essential to the continued health of our country, and that we are irreplaceable. Batswana expect of us to harness our human and material resources to work for future victories with renewed vigour and conviction.

An essential aspect of the mobilization effort is to build, strengthen and keep operational, our Party structures at all levels. We keep repeating the message that Party structures are not for intra Party elections alone, but much more for galvanizing the membership into activity and attracting new members to the Party. Increasingly, some of our Members of Parliament and of Council do not participate in Party activity.

They, more than most members, have the advantage of access to greater resources and must use some of those resources in the work of the Party, if their love of the Party and country should not be enough, then out of gratitude to the Party for their positions. They must always remember that they benefit more than most from their membership of the Party. Members of Parliament and of Councils must constantly keep their constituents informed of evolving Government Programs, and ensure delivery of services and all advantages in all the communities of our people.

Bulela Ditswe

This system of primary elections, while a great improvement on its predecessor system, had teething problems at inception. It cannot have been unexpected that it would be so.
As we then promised, the Central Committee has come up with initiatives directed at sharpening its effectiveness and minimizing the impact of its imperfections on the fortunes of our Party in the elections.

As the Secretary General of our Party reported at the National Council earlier this year, the Central Committee has recently established a Committee to be convened by Hon. Venson Moitoi. One of the functions of the Committee is to devise and recommend schemes for the improvement of the bulela ditswe system to the Central Committee. The Committee has since conceived of an initiative they have dubbed "Ke leloko...Wenaa.....?"

One of the initiatives of the Committee is to renew all membership cards to the year 2009. The Party office has already made substantial progress in doing this. In order to avoid the private interests of prospective candidates interfering with the membership registration process in anticipation of bulela ditswe, the Party has engaged 30 temporary staff. Made up of 4 groups of 6 people each, some of the staff are already visiting constituencies distributing the new cards. Please receive and give them your every support and assistance.

Party Finances

There are many MaDomkrag, most of them women, who selflessly serve our Party and nation. Your efforts are praiseworthy and I have no doubt that our people are grateful to you. I encourage you to continue with your initiative of helping the under-privileged, through your annual contribution to the Masiela Trust Fund and building houses for the needy. This spirit should continue and grow. As you do this, please remember that the Party Treasurer always reports on our dwindling finances and the need for us to step up our efforts to raise more money. Women have, as you know, always been at the forefront of our fundraising efforts as a Party. This commitment we deeply value and are assured that it will continue.

HIV/AIDS

A report on this subject, although of poignant relevance to all of us, is of particular importance to the Congress of the Women's Wing of our Party. It shall be brief. As you know, combating this debilitating condition is amongst our highest priorities as a Government. Although the challenges of HIV and AIDS remain extant, we continue to make progress in our initiatives to fight it.

Altogether, Government had spent about P621 million as at March 2007, of which about P528 million representing 88% came from our own budget and the balance from kind donors. This represents a significant increase over previous years. As at February this year, of about the 110,000 people eligible for ARVs. 82,492 were already getting them. This is an improvement on the 52,054 who were receiving them as at February 2006. The remainder of the people will get ARVs as soon as on-going efforts to increase infrastructural capacity bear fruit. Every effort is being made to bring the event as close as possible.

We are doing our utmost, are the toast of the world and the donor community, and our efforts continue to bear fruit. We are always looking for ways of reducing the rate of infection and increasing the number of those who are able to access treatment and therapy. We have had some successes in this regard, and there is much to be optimistic about. Please help us by educating your families and communities about the unspeakable dangers of this scourge and the absolute necessity to avoid infection.

The Election of Your Executive Committee

You will again be electing your Executive Committee at the culmination of this Congress. The spirit I have seen demonstrates to me the recognition by all of the need to consolidate the peace and unity once characteristic of our Party. I am glad that you have embraced the concept of healthy competition amongst yourselves without mudslinging and maligning others who might want to contest elections. I urge you to elect a strong Committee of people of energy and ability whose love for and dedication to the Party and our country will spur them into profitable activity during the next two years.

Conclusion

This, as you know, is the last Congress of the Women's Wing which I shall have occasion to address. The Constitution of our country, quite properly, decrees that I retire by the 31st of March 2008. I thank you most sincerely for the support that you have always given me during my tenure as Party leader. I have no doubt that you will extend similar support to my successor, His Honour the Vice President, Lt. General Seretse Khama Ian Khama. I should enjoy my retirement immensely if you would do so.

In conclusion, let me wish you well in your Congress and encourage you to be level headed in your discussions if you are to come up with meaningful resolutions. I wish to see a renewed commitment to peace and prosperity for the Party and country. I especially call upon you because yours is a hallowed place in the life of the nation, and of our Party. The burden of nurturing and sustaining the well being of our people rests on your shoulders. Never truer than now is the adage "mmangwana o tshwara thipa ka fa bogaleng".

Director of Ceremonies, Our Honourable Guests and MaDomkrag a mantle, it now is my singular pleasure to declare this the 10th. Congress of the Women's Wing of our great Party officially opened. May yours be wise and fruitful discussions and the resolutions to emanate from it be implemented with resounding success. May the happy future of our Party, country and people be once again affirmed. TSHOLETSA DOMKRAG ! TSHOLETSA !!!