Falling through the nets
In the shade of a Motlopi tree on a plain of cracked Ramaphatle earth, Boshale Ntlaboletsa curses the day Thamaga sub district council deregistered her from monthly food rations. The wrinkled mother of four was not given a satisfactory answer to the sudden exclusion. She has been receiving P120 per month worth of food hampers to feed her needy family.
Her major crime was her decision to enlist in the grass cutting and pavement sweeping part time poverty eradication scheme for a return of P400 a month. Ipelegeng - a President Ian Khama driven short-term poverty eradication scheme- pays its 40 000 beneficiaries a living wage of about $2.20 a day, barely exceeding the international poverty measure of $1.25 a day.
The job is routine and “boring” for Thusego, Ntlaboletsa’s daughter who dropped from school at Standard Seven due to pregnancy. “We come here to pass time,” she says, shaking her head. Without husbands and support structure, Ntlaboletsa and Thusego are vulnerable and stuck with the scheme but social workers believe that is probably the best option at the moment. “At Ipelegeng they earn more,” explains Olebotse Moikgofe an official at the Social and Community Development Office.
For Mogotsi Relaeng, a former security guard in Tlokweng, Khama’s poverty eradication initiatives offer a number of lucrative choices. “If I can not get LIMID, I have to be on Ipelegeng, but I prefer backyard garden,” he says and adds that recent water restrictions will discourage him from trying his hand in crop production. Skeptics will scoff that Khama’s government is far too incompetent to eradicate poverty and that initiatives like Ipelegeng create a culture of dependency on government. But skeptics can be overly exaggerating.
The results of the Botswana Core Welfare Indicators (Poverty) Survey of 2009/10 shows that rural poverty has declined from 44.8 percent in 2002/03 to 25.5 percent in 2009/10, while 10.6 percent of people living below the poverty datum line in cities registered a 3.4 percent increase to 14.0 percent in 2009/10. Despite its critics, government says Khama is not throwing money at problems. They argue that the scheme and other economic programmes have significantly reduced the number of people living below the internationally measurable poverty datum line from 23.4 percent in 2002/2003 to around 6 percent in 2009/10. However, at 17 percent, unemployment remains high and income inequalities are deep. At least half of the unemployed are young people and over 6000 graduates join the streets on annual basis. Botswana might be considered an Upper Middle-Income country, but many of its people are not.
Take for example Malebogo Dipheko (30), who believes that the spinoffs from mineral wealth are yet to reach her. When he came into office in April 2008, Khama wanted to alter the economic status of Ntlaboletsa and many other poor Batswana and is spending about 0.2 percentage of GDP on a wide range of policies and programmes. Ipelegeng took the lion’s share of P580 million in the just ended fiscal year, while other programmes such as Youth Development Fund, Youth Empowerment Scheme (YES) and LIMID are contributing to the initiative. Yet rural poverty continues to expose Botswana’s skewed income disparities in which around one percent of the rich control 70 percent of the country’s wealth. The country’s despair has left more than 30 000 people in severe need of food and shelter. The desperate and malnourished that get social safety nets are the lucky ones in a population of 2 million and a declining life expectancy of 53.2 years, according to United Nations Human Development Index. In the North West, Central District, Kweneng and Gantsi thousands are trapped in a vicious circle of poverty and squalour. Government has argued several times that people like Ntlaboletsa and Thusego should be excluded from the traditional definition of extreme poverty. Director in the Department of Social Services, Ruth Radibe hopes Ntlaboletsa and Thusego will graduate out of poverty. Despite Radibe’s optimism not everyone is amused by Khama’s social safety nets. University of Botswana social analyst, Professor Keitseope Nthomang believes that social safety nets have a tendency to create severe dependency, as beneficiaries prefer the menial job as opposed to looking for sustainable employment. “Government likes quick fixes, often not backed by research,” complains Professor Nthomang, adding that given its budget allocation, Khama’s government will not achieve its poverty eradication efforts.
“If government believes Ipelegeng will eradicate poverty, then money is going to waste, Professor Nthomang told a gathering during a Botswana Guardian quarterly breakfast seminar at The Pavilion restaurant. Critics say Khama’s penchant for donations and throwing money at problems is legendary. Khama is known to have donated blankets to the poor, bicycles, fat cakes and food hampers, forcing Botswana Congress Party (BCP) president Dumelang Saleshando to label him “Father Christmas.” A donation “sourced from a Cypriot businessman” in late January saw Khama donating about 65 000 shirts to the poor. Haile Taye of Botswana Institute for Development Policy Analysis (BIDPA) echoed Nthomang, saying there is need for a long term and sustainable solution to poverty and unemployment. About one in five Batswana live in extreme poverty. The figure is somewhat an improvement when compared to 2003 figures when 31 percent lived below the bread line. Government attributes the improvement to initiatives such as Integrated Support Programme for Arable Agriculture and LIMID. But the story is not all gloom.
Michael Mogotsi started his backyard gardening three years ago and was working on planting a bed of cabbage when water shortage hit Tlokweng. “I could be far by now,” says Mogotsi. His sizeable garden is a living testimony on how self-sustenance could improve lives. During a good harvest, Mogotsi sells his vegetables to neighbours and is able to pay the hefty Water Utilities Corporation (WUC) bills. “If nothing is done about this bill, I am going to have to stop,” he says and reveals that at times he pays P600 a month in bills.