Privatising Gaborone bus rank bitterly divides BNF and BMD

The Gaborone City Council’s decision to privatise the Gaborone Bus Rank ahead of next year’s general election may prove the Umbrella for Democratic Change’s (UDC) Achilles Heel.

The Umbrella is composed of Botswana National Front (BNF) Botswana Movement for Democracy (BMD) and Botswana People’s Party (BPP) all of who seem to have different views on privatisation.

So far, even the unions such as Botswana Federation of Public Sector Unions (BOFEPUSU) who are mobilising their members not to vote for some of the ruling party members in next year’s general election are against privatisation.

Gaborone City Mayor, Haskins Nkaigwa and his councillors are highly vocal and excited about changing the landscape of Gaborone through the privatisation process, and their first start is the main bus rank, while their umbrella partner BNF is against such a move.Nkaigwa appears to be a man of action and an instructions taker, he talks of respecting the views of all colleagues in the party, but at the same time can not afford to disregard the views and opinions of his councillors and the electorate. Motivating on why his council will continue with privatisation of the rank, Nkaigwa said: “I do not represent the party, I represent the views of the people of Gaborone whom I interact with everyday and get the mandate from.”

He continued that he knows the position of the BNF from the socialist point of view, but is worried that GCC bus rank has no employees except for the people who clean toilets, who are sourced from the bye-law office and are not coping with the workload. “In this case, there will be no loss of employment, we want to improve the outlook of our bus rank so that it is user friendly.

We are thinking of a public facility that will cater for the demands of all,” he said. At present council employees work from 7.30 am to 4:30 pm, while the bus rank operates 24/7 throughout the year. When the employees knock off, no one remains behind to maintain security, look after sanitation or clean the facility. In Nkaigwa’s view, the bus rank represents the face of the city, since many people coming from outside reach Gaborone through it. “It is our view that the rank must be receptive,” he said. “I respect the views and the position of my party, BNF, but remember I am a BMD and the reality is I am a leader representing the views and opinions of residents of Gaborone,” said Ngaigwa. He continued that it is the position of his party promote outsourcing, “but we do not want anything that will make people to lose jobs.” 

He explained that the GCC investment wing, Civic Centre Holdings would be mandated to take these projects through in partnership with the private sector. He said that outsourcing could not divide the constituent members of the UDC adding further that as umbrella, they will not always agree on everything. “As BMD we believe there is need to empower the local authorities as this will improve the livelihood of the citizens as more money will circulate in their hands,” he said. BNF Publicity Secretary Moeti Mohwasa this week told Botswana Guardian that: “The BNF is against the policy of privatisation but we are still to get a brief about what is happening with the bus rank.” Even if the leaders were to agree on privatising the bus rank, they may not get the buy in from the masses if the opinion expressed by BNF activist, Kalmon Tafa is anything to go by. In his article ‘Stop privatisation of bus rank,’ Tafa wrote that the “majority of the Gaborone councillors are BMD and BCP members. Mayor Nkayigwa is a member of the BMD, which has entered into a united front with the BNF and the BPP and is therefore expected to implement some of the alternative opposition policies in a council controlled by the opposition. Even the BCP, to the best of my knowledge, does not condone privatisation of services like transportation.

During the harmonisation of Umbrella policies the BCP described their policies in these words; ‘The BCP’s philosophical framework is the Social Democratic Programme’.  Therefore all four parties, the BNF, BMD, BCP and BPP are broadly agreed on the establishment of a developmental state on the basis of a Social Democratic Programme whose ideology is to the centre-left of the political spectrum. Social democracy guarantees all citizens equality of access to basic services like water, electricity, housing, basic education and health as well as transportation.

And this can only happen when these services are provided by the state. It is therefore something of a puzzle that Gaborone opposition councillors comprising mostly of the BMD and BCP should embrace such a blatantly BDP policy of privatisation of transportation that will hurt the workers, Gaborone residents and underprivileged members of the community who survive at the margins of the economy by selling an assortment of commodities as street vendors and hawkers. These councillors are out of order,” he said. BOFEPUSU General Secretary, Tobokani Rari said: “We do not believe in privatising because it comes with taking jobs from the people. We do not believe privatisation is the only solution to inefficiency that brings about results. We believe that something can be done to enhance productivity.”

He said they could only agree to any form of privatisation if the workers are given the first right to retain those jobs or are allowed to form companies that would later take over in such situations.” BMD Head of Policy, Ndaba Gaolatlhe said to start with, GCC has not furnished them with details as to their exact plans, other than to cast a broad idea that such a company is being considered to provide management services for taxi ranks. “In this respect, it would not be appropriate to pre-empt them.” But at a broader level, all the three umbrella parties are in concert about a pragmatic and fair approach to managing state enterprises and excellence in governance as well as the idea of strategic interventions in the economy where necessary. “The establishment of a management company to manage taxi ranks, broadly speaking, represents a strategic and pragmatic intervention, depending on how it will be carried out,” he said adding that for Gaborone City to gravitate towards being a world-class city, “we ought to be serious about providing well-kept facilities for commuters and taxi-operators as part of improving our transport system.” He said they are aware that this could spark “ideological warfare as some may interpret such an initiative as blatant privatisation” initiative.  Given that the GCC does not currently maintain taxi ranks and there are no known human resources dedicated to their management, this initiative therefore cannot be considered to be a “privatisation” exercise. 

This is a simple, pragmatic intervention to provide safe and well-kept facilities to improve part of our transport system. The Umbrella intends to monitor closely if this intervention will be executed fairly, professionally and in an economically feasible manner. For community-level interventions like this one, our position is that it is possible to involve community members or groups who can be trained to work and manage collectively in partnership with other more established stakeholders. We hope this is the route that the Gaborone City Council will take, he said.