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CORRUPTION AND MISMANAGEMENT 5I7land and other property' provided this was done on an unincorporatedbasis and outside normal office-hours. Supposedly those concernedcould not be a director or manager in a public or private company,but could 'hold a minority of shares' provided that the officer hadfully paid for them. In the Government's white paper approved byParliament in December I982, it was declared that 'Ministers shouldregister their interests in the same way as members of the publicservice'. Responsibility for the implementation of this importantregister was vested in the President. Forms for an officer's annualdeclaration of property, assets, and liabilities, under General Order No.2IO, were prepared, but the register was either never introduced or fellquickly into abeyance.68The long involvement of the ruling elite in agricultural productionarguably promoted economic rationality and fuelled growth. But thedistinction between public resources and private wealth, between theinterests of the people and those of an influential few, remainedinherently fraught. The amendments to General Orders were made ina time of economic boom, represented in a fashion commercial sense,and accorded with the ways of Tswana rulers. But the openness andweaknesses of the new regulations, and the non-existence of any registerof assets and liabilities, may have unfolded the way to an abandonmentof the distinction between public and private assets, notably as regardsland, farming, housing, and the borrowing of funds. In the prevailingeconomic and political conditions, a Rubicon seems to have beencrossed. Many in the ruling elite, as the cases here indicate, are now theowners and/or directors of commercial companies; some, as bothministers and directors, have acquired advantageous loans for theirfirms from state-owned financial institutions which they have beenreluctant to repay, leading to the bankruptcy of the public bodies. Thishas proceeded in a hidden and secretive way, with little or noaccountability, despite high financial and other costs to the nation.PREDOMINANCE OF THE RULING ELITEEconomically engaged leaders emerged in the hierarchical society ofnineteenth/twentieth-century Botswana. Rapid growth has deepenedthe inequalities of property and incomes. By the early I 98os, according68 Editorial, Botswana Gazette, ii March i 992. The Presidential Commission on EconomicOpportunities, on which the Government's white paper was based, had also proposed thatParliament appoint an Ombudsman.
5i8 KENNETH GOODto Richard White, 58 per cent of rural households neither owned norcontrolled cattle, as against 74 per cent ten years later."9 At the end ofI992, the gap between the top public service salary (P8,2i6 a monthplus sizeable allowances) and the statutory minimum wage (P327 amonth) reached 34-7: i, as H. K. Siphambe indicates.70 If the averageearnings of domestic servants and farm labourers - not covered byminimum-wage legislation - are also brought into the equation, thedifferential is far greater. Some were still worse off.71 The monthlyincomes of San in the Western Sandveld in 199I averaged about P25,but a number worked 'only for milk', while others went unpaid.72The legitimate operations of Botswana's system of governmentfurther separates the ruling group from the bulk of the population.Citizens participate as voters once every five years, not usuallyotherwise. The 'first-past-the-post' electoral system makes it difficultfor small opposition parties to translate votes cast for them into seatswon in Parliament. Botswana's elite democracy takes the particularform of a dominant-party system.73 Patrick Molutsi has pointed to thenon-engagement of the masses in politics, and to the failure or inabilityof citizens to make demands on their leaders.74 This incapacity evenextends to the organisations invested with the task of making demandson the Government. Although the opposition parties together obtained33 per cent of votes at the i989 elections, they appeared reluctant tomount an electoral challenge to build upon this sizeable vote duringI 994. The Botswana National Front called a press conference inFebruary to announce that it would inform 'the internationalcommunity' of the financial improprieties of the BDP leadership,75 butfailed to press the Government for the details of ministerial loans. Thereis a seeming preference for a mutually irrational dialogue between69 Richard White, 'Is the Livestock Industry the Enemy of the Environment?', Symposium ofthe Kalahari Conservation Society, Gaborone, I3-I4 November I992, p. I5.70 H. K. Siphambe, 'Minimum Wages in Botswana: should they be increased?', in BarclaysBotswana Economic Review, 3, 4, n.d. p. 6.71 See Kenneth Good, 'At the Ends of the Ladder: radical inequalities in Botswana', in TheJournal of Modern African Studies, 3 I, 2, June I 993, pp. 203-30.72 Alec Campbell, Main and Associates, 'Western Sandveld Remote Area Dwellers', Reportsubmitted to the Ministry of Local Government and Lands and the Norwegian Agency forInternational Development Co-operation, Gaborone, April I99I, pp. 44-5.73 See T.J. Pempel, Uncommon Democracies (Ithaca, NY, and London, i990) for thisterminology, discussed by Tom Nairn, 'The Sole Survivor', in New Left Review (London), 200,July-August I993, pp. 41-7. In the somewhat similar systems ofJapan, Sweden, and Italy (witha dominant coalition) until recently, one party ruled democratically for almost 40 years.74 Midweek Sun, I5 September I993. Patrick Molutsi may rather over-state the actual, ratherthan the intended, passivity of the people, certainly with regard to students and organised workersin the towns. 75 Botswana Gazette, i6 February I994.
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