Windhoek
During his first official State visit to Botswana President Hage Geingob told Motswana lawmakers on Monday that Botswana and all countries in the SADC regional bloc should work together to make Botswana the regional diamond hub.
President Geingob was in Botswana for a two-day State visit accompanied by several Cabinet ministers, including Minister of Mines and Energy Obeth Kandjoze and Minister of Works and Transport Alpheus !Naruseb. Yesterday Geingob also officiated at a Botswana-Namibia business seminar.
Upon his return yesterday afternoon Geingob told reporters at Eros Airport that he was highly impressed by the diamond industry in that country and that last year Namibia sold US$1 billion (N$14,3 billion) worth of diamonds to Botswana. He said Botswana “is doing very well… Of course they are benefiting more than us [from the diamond trade], but as a regional hub we are also benefiting.”
It was during his address to that country’s parliament on the day of his arrival there that the Namibian president stressed the need for regional cooperation to make Gaborone the centre of the diamond trade in the SADC bloc.
“It is also worth noting that Botswana, after South Africa, is the most important African trading partner of Namibia.
“Last year alone we exported diamonds worth more than US$1 billion to Botswana,” Geingob explained. “We must cooperate more as fellow diamond producing nations in the same neighbourhood to build up a robust and diversified regional diamond hub,” he added.
Geingob further noted that the two nations should act with a greater sense of urgency to boost development programmes and achieve common developmental objectives.
“There are cross-border projects, most notably the construction of a railway line to export Botswana coal to the world markets via Namibia that must be accelerated. We need to embark on mutually beneficial cross-border projects. In mentioning the above issues, I have taken due note of the efforts made by Botswana in empowering its citizens,” he said. “I’m here referring to the Citizen Economic Empowerment Policy of Botswana and the Youth Empowerment Reservation Programme, as well as the 10th National Development Plan of Botswana that just ended on 31 March 2016. These plans and policies put the wellbeing of Botswana’s citizens first, just as it should be in any government.
“In Namibia we feel that we have been wrongly classified as upper middle income, thereby depriving us from accessing grant and concessional funding for developmental purposes. Economic development simply cannot be captured by one single measure, such as GDP. We must, therefore, do all we can to address the inequalities that continue to exist among our people.”
He said Botswana and Namibia’s strengths lie in their concerted efforts to ensure that the future will be dictated by the plans and policies crafted today: “To achieve these, we should hold hands in the spirit of Harambee, fighting for a common goal. This way, we can happily face challenges together and will succeed together!”
President Geingob listed some projects that have been jointly undertaken over the past few years, including the Trans-Kalahari highway and the establishment of dry port facilities for Botswana at the Port of Walvis Bay. This, he explained, affords Namibia’s neighbour the opportunity to no longer be viewed as a landlocked country, but rather as a sea-linked country.
“It’s also gratifying to see that increasingly more Motswanas have started to use the Trans-Kalahari [highway] to come and spend their December holidays at the coast in Namibia. This shows that it was not only trade and investment that was stimulated by this important corridor, but also the movement of people.”