inBUSINESS Issue 12

APRIL/MAY 2017 | ISSUE 12 | www.inbusiness.co.bw
APRIL/MAY 2017 | ISSUE 12 Inspiring the Entreprenuer Botswana InBusiness Magazine
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KNIGHT GANJE
The tycoon who slept in a spaza shop
PAGE 16
ALSO INSIDE
Kelly =Jurist +Verve x Integrity
-PAGE 8

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www.inbusiness.co.bw | Issue 12 | 2017

B SE
STOCK
BOTSWANA
EXCHANGE
At Botswana Stock Exchange, our mission is to
“To drive sustainable economic growth by
providing a gateway for raising capital and
accessing investment opportunities.”
Our Vision
“To be a world-class securities exchange
delivering innovative products and services.”
Our Core Values
Innovation • Integrity • Sustainability • Efficiency •
Commercial Focus • Teamwork
Botswana Stock Exchange • @TheOfficialBSE • Botswana Stock Exchange
EXCHANGE HOUSE • Office Block 6 • Plot 64511, Fairgrounds • Private Bag 00417 • Gaborone Botswana
Telephone: +267 367 4400 , Fax: +267 318 0175 • www.bse.co.bw
www.inbusiness.co.bw | Issue 12 | 2017 3

CONTENTS
IN THIS ISSUE
05 | EDITORIAL COMMENT
• Nkaigwa Repudiated Himself
06 | BUSINESS NEWS
• Botswana Tourism Ratings Increase Since 2016
• SME Sector Vital to Driving Economy
• Stanbic Bank Named Best Bank in Botswana
• SA’s Downgrade is Bad News for Botswana
12
08 | THE GLOBAL COLUMN
• “Think ‘land-linked’ rather than ‘landlocked’”.... a view from Japan
10 | INTERNATIONAL NEWS
• Facebook looks at Removing Bogus Accounts
• Car Manufacturing Makes A Return In Kenya
• World Bank Plots $60bn War Chest for Africa
12 | COVER STORY
• KNIGHT GANJE: The tycoon who slept in a spaza shopuracheril Matthew
16 | EXECUTIVE PROFILES
• ESAYAS WOLDEMARIAM HAILU: ‘The Whole Planet Reports To Me’
20 | ECONOMY
• Lack of Opportunities for Young Africans a Concern
16
22 | IN CAREER
• KELLY =Jurist +VERVE x INTEGRITY
26 | ENGAGE WOMEN
• Finkie’s Funky Learners’ Game
28 | YOUTH IN BUSINESS
• MALEBOGO MARUMOAGAE of BELLE LARISSA: A Nexus of Beauty,
Brains, Poise and a Dash of Class
30 | AVIATION
• Young Hearts Fly High and Bright
• Djibouti Pilot Becomes First African To Fly Solo Around The World
32 | TOURISM
• A Journey Through History Unveils Old Gaborone
38
DISCLAIMER:Many contributing writers to inBusiness are experts
from various fields serving and providing advice to our readers in
their individual capacities. That advice is the expert’s own and he/
she is solely responsible for the information and opinions that he/she
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give. However, inBusiness is not responsible for any loss or damage,
including - but not limited to - claims for defamation, error, loss of
data or interruption in its availability arising from use of such advice.
34 | TECHNOLOGY
• Preserving History and Culture Through Apps
36 | HEALTH
• Wine Tasting And Networking Session To Raise Awareness On Endometriosis
38 | LIFESTYLE
• FOOD
• SHOWBIZ
• FASHION
54 | MOTORING
• Next Generation Scorpion: THE ABARTH 595
58 | SPORTS
• DIPSY is No Dipsomaniac (Re Run)
60 | EVENT
• inBusiness List of BTO Events
4
www.inbusiness.co.bw | Issue 12 | 2017

APRIL/MAY 2017
EDITORIAL
ACTING EDITOR
Douglas B. Tsiako
NEWS EDITOR
Tuduetso Tebape
WRITERS
Malebogo Ratladi
Raymond Moremi
Ononofile Lonkokile
MARKETING & ADVERTISING
Bone Letlole
Loatile Leteane
Mishingo Keorapetse
Disoso J. Pheto
Mbakisano Tjiyapo
DESIGN & LAYOUT
Nkagisang T. Molefhe
PHOTOGRAPHY
Baagedi Setlhora
CONTRIBUTORS
Modiri Mogende
Natasha Selato
CONTACTS
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EDITORIAL
Nkaigwa Repudiated Himself
The wild utterances of Haskins Nkaigwa about tribe and territory being primary factors
in leadership must be treated with utter contempt because they are at once a damnable
discredit to the one who prated them, a disgrace to the forum where he prattled and
an ignominy fit for divine condemnation. For how is it possible that anyone can go to
Parliament to advance a cause of regionalism, tribalism and ethnicity?
This man is not to be dismissed as just a dumb ox chewing the cud, for he could mistake
that as encouragement to bring forth more froth. Instead, because our system does not
provide for procedures leading to banishment from Parliament, he is to be censored
without sparing a measure, and this includes rejection at the polls for misrepresenting the
people who voted for him.
Here is more why: We live in a world that is still capable of untold death and destruction
that can follow dangerous utterances. The worst of these must certainly be what followed
the Spanish conquest of the Americas at the end of the 15th Century: when the Europeans
arrived there, there were 50 million people. A few centuries later, the population had been
reduced to a mere two million. The ‘conquistadors’ acted in the wake of speeches that
referred to the native populations as vermin and non-Catholic heathens.
A better known genocide is Adolf Hitler’s extermination of six million Jews mainly in
Germany, most of them in specially-built gas chambers inside concentration camps. “A
state that in this age of racial poisoning dedicates itself to the care of its best racial elements
must some day become the lord of the earth,” the Fuhrer had written in Mein Kampf ahead
of “The Final Solution.”
The least recorded is the African genocide during which countless millions of Africans
were shipped across the Red Sea, the Swahili ports of the Indian Ocean, the trans-Saharan
caravan route and the Atlantic Ocean during which no one cared to note how many
drowned, were tossed to whales as excess baggage, or otherwise did not make the journey.
For several decades now, Jubilee 2000 has campaigned for the hidden truth of the African
genocide during the slave trade to be unveiled so as to make a case for reparations along
the lines of what accrues to Israel in restitution for atrocities of Nazi Germany in which
other European countries and the US were complicit by their collective failure to protect
Jews. It is a matter for serious lamentation that the Jews have today turned the fury of their
resentment for the West for Hitler’s ‘final solution’ on innocent Palestinians.
Rwanda presents a more recent example of what promotion of ethnicity can do. When
‘Hutu Power’ rose against the Rwandan Patriotic Front that Hutus regarded as an alien
force because it consisted of Rwandan Tutsi refugees living in Uganda, 800 000 Tutsis
perished within 100 days beginning 7April 1994.
Between 1983 and ’87, Robert Mugabe’s Shona-led Fifth Brigade of the Zimbabwean
army carried out ethnic cleansing among the Ndebele in which 80 000 people were killed,
all of them civilians. We say nothing of how much Gatha Buthelezi’s Inkatha held back
SA’s liberation struggle because its principals somehow managed to mislead Zulus into
believing that they had a common destiny with white supremacists. Or the untold harm
that apartheid visited upon the entire southern African region over centuries.
Ironically, by his utterances, the MP for Gaborone North has renounced himself and
the programme that he purports to advance because the thrust of his essential illorgic is
that the UDC has no business seeking to win elections for the reason that the ‘tradition’
of this country is to return the BDP at every turn! Among his supporters was a man who
once distinguished himself as a talented troublemaker by mounting a spirited crusade to
prevent the return of Sidney Pilane to the opposition fold by making insidious hints that
Pilane would be returning as a turncoat whose mission was to derail the firming course of
the opposition so that Domkrag may extend its life further.
But the MP for Mogoditshane, Sedirwa Kgoroba, could not deflect the suspicion that
what he and his cabal truly feared was the superior intellect, oratory, financial clout and
penmanship of the man they so ruthlessly maligned. They must also have been troubled
that they could become perishable mortals of vanishing value and diminishing utility in
the presence of the illustrious lawyer.
At any rate, while we hold no brief for Pilane as an upright man, we think it right to
call attention to the consuming fear of many in the ranks of opposition supporters that
the BMD quotient of the UDC is made up of sojourners who are likely to make a hasty
retreat as soon as President Ian Khama is out of the way, which should be fairly imminent.
Therefore, instead of harnessing his energy to forces of destruction, Kgoroba might have
done better to focus on allaying these fears.
www.inbusiness.co.bw | Issue 12 | 2017 5

BUSINESS NEWS
Botswana Tourism Ratings
Increase since 2016
BY ONONOFILE LONKOKILE
Botswana has earned
position 85 out of a total
136 countries in terms
of tourism performance,
compared to the 88th
position the nation was
rated in 2016. This is according to the
recently released Travel and Tourism
Competitiveness Report for 2017.
Some of the categories in which
Botswana scored high include; price
competitiveness at 13th place, which
means ticket taxes, airport charges,
hotel prices, purchasing power parity
and fuel prices levels are reasonable.
Environmental sustainability at 36th
position, showing there is a low number
of threatened species, coupled with
good enforcement of environmental
regulations. Natural resources rated at
50th place, referring to the attractiveness
of natural assets and number of world
heritage natural sites. Botswana‘s business
atmosphere scored at 30th place, judged
based on market control. In terms of
air transport, Botswana was positioned
88th which proves that the country is
still challenged. International openness
and health and hygiene, however, lagged
behind scoring the lowest mark at 118th
position.
Neighbouring South Africa gained
53rd position, leading the entire Sub
Saharan region. This, according to
the report, was due to improved price
competitiveness by reduction of charges
in hotels, ticket prices and taxes among
many others. Namibia gained 82nd
position due to a good score in natural
resources, business environment and
price competitiveness.
Human resource is ranked at the 72nd
position this year in Botswana, compared
to 100th position in the previous report.
The report also showed that it’s easier to
hire foreigners over locals in Botswana
because of unskilled labour. It also
showed that female participation in the
labour force is still low, ranked at 95th
position.
On global ranks, Spain leads the pack
for the second time, attributed to the
countries’ unique offering of cultural
resources, sound tourism service and
good air transport. Second position was
held by France, followed by; Germany,
Japan and United Kingdom respectively.
The theme for this year is “paving
the way for a more sustainable and
inclusive future.” It highlights the
increasing focus on ensuring the
industry’s sustained growth in an
uncertain security environment, while
preserving the natural environment and
local communities on which it so richly
depends.
SME Sector Vital to Driving Economy
BY ONONOFILE LONKOKILE
Small Medium Enterprises
(SMEs) denote a crucial
sector for driving
Botswana’s economic
diversification and
sustainable growth plan.
This was said by Head of Structured
Solutions at Botswana Insurance
Holdings Limited, Kudzani Pickup,
at the recently held Botswana Stock
Exchange (BSE) listings conference.
Pickup explained that studies by the
World Bank and the Organization for
Economic Cooperation Development
show that SMEs make up a substantial
part of emerging market economies.
Outside the agricultural sector,
he explained, they account for 95
percent of all firms in Botswana and
specifically make up 35 percent of the
Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and
contributes 75 percent to formal sector
employment. In developing countries
alone SMEs, he said, have a credit gap
of $1 trillion, while having the potential
to contribute billions to GDP and
creating millions of jobs.
‘These are staggering figures and
they indicate where we should be
directing our financial, educational
and capital resources especially for a
country like Botswana where we are in
dire need for economic diversification,”
Said Pickup.
Access to financing remains a
commonly discussed issue facing SMEs,
credit gap is the biggest challenge to
growth in middle-income countries
like Botswana. Better access to capital
markets could help bridge that gap.
Hence there is an opportunity for SMEs
to finance their growth strategies
through listing on the BSE. He outlined
several benefits of listing on the BSE as
a platform to provide access to capital
at a lower cost compared to taking a
bank loan, saying it also increases the
credit worthiness of a company and
diversifies its investor base. SMEs, he
concluded, should be at the centre of
the national economic growth strategy.
6
www.inbusiness.co.bw | Issue 12 | 2017

Stanbic Bank Named Best Bank in Botswana
BY ONONOFILE LONKOKILE
Standard Bank
Group and
Stanbic Bank
Botswana have
been named
the Best Bank
in Africa and
Best Bank in Botswana
respectively by Global
Finance magazine as
part of their 24th annual
awards.
Chief Executive Officer
of Stanbic Bank Botswana,
Leina Gabaraane, said
the recognition proves
their pledge to providing
significant and quality
financial services in the market. He explained
that it is through their efforts at supporting
economic activity in various sectors across
the country that they are acknowledged.
Gabaraane pointed out that Stanbic Bank is
committed to immproving and doing more
to make progress real.
“We, therefore, believe this award clearly
demonstrates our capability and expertise in
the banking sector in Botswana and Africa.
Awards like these are not just a mere pat on
the back but pay homage to all those who
help the bank move forward,’ said Gabaraane
In determining the winner of the
award; analysts, bankers
and corporate financial
executives were consulted on
aspects that include growth
in assets, profitability,
geographic reach, strategic
relationships, new business
development and innovation
in products. In addition, the
opinions of equity analysts,
credit rating analysts,
banking consultants and
others involved in the
industry were taken into
consideration.
Editor of Global
Finance Magazine, Joseph
Giarraputo, explained that
they are celebrating financial institutions
which excel at delivering good customer
service and products tailored to meet their
needs. Giarraputo further said the banks may
not be the biggest or oldest but their energy
and adaptability make them stand out in
their fields.
SA’s Downgrade is Bad News for Botswana - Analysts
BY ONONOFILE LONKOKILE
The good news is for businesses that import
goods from South Africa to Botswana as they
buy them at lower prices because of the pula
to rand exchange rate. However, researcher
and analyst at Motswedi Securities, Garry
Juma, has warned that in the mid- to longterm,
this joy could be short-lived.
Juma says this in relation to South
Africa’s current economic status and credit
downgrade of the neighbouring country‘s
economy by Standard and Poor’s(S&P) early
this month.
S&P’s downgrade of the economic giant was
prompted by political risks that the rating
agency said would remain elevated and that
policy shifts that could undermine fiscal and
economic growth were likely.
Juma says in the mid-term, South Africa’s
cost of capital, interest rates and services
will increase. But the main impact of the
downgrade will be an increase in risk
premium, meaning an increase in interest
rates because of increased default risk.
According to Juma, the general economy
might suffer, leading to commodity prices
going up, a pinch that would also be felt in
Botswana. He notes that some cushion exists
in Botswana‘s attempts to reduce dependence
on South Africa.
Examples of this include Botswana Oil to
ensure efficiencies in fuel supplies in the
event of shortages or price hikes in South
Africa and Botswana’s dry port in Namibia
as a substitute for goods coming through the
traditional Durban route.
“While Botswana might not
feel the effect of South Africa
downgrade immediately, a crash
on the Johannesburg Stock
Exchange would have rippling
effects on the Botswana Stock
Exchange,”
“The current economic situation in South
Africa is also likely to have investors keep
away from the southern African region.
Further, Botswana is likely to import
inflation from South Africa. However, job
losses cannot be ruled out in long-term,
and companies may move their investment
elsewhere.
According to Juma, rating agencies like
S&P act as indicators to investors regarding
the state of a country’s economy. In 2016,
S&P rated Botswana A- Investment Grade
for short-term bonds denominated in both
domestic and foreign currency. This had
investors view Botswana in a positive light of
stable and sustainable.
Meanwhile, the Chief Economist of
Standard Chartered Bank Africa, Razia Khan,
has been quoted as saying underperformance
in South Africa will definitely impact
negatively on trade in the southern African
region which will in turn affect Southern
African Customs Union receipts, thus
directly impacting on Botswana. She noted
that the Botswana economy was volatile
because of political instability in South
Africa.
This was in addition to the fact that
Botswana was underperforming relative
to other middle-income countries because
its economy was dependent more on the
government rather than the private sector.
“The private sector also has a role to
play in growing the economy,” Khan said.
“It should be a driver of the economy …
The government also needs to do more to
expand the contribution of all sectors of the
economy.”
www.inbusiness.co.bw | Issue 12 | 2017 7

THE GLOBAL COLUMN
ON THE
Diplomatic
FRONT
With TUDUETSO TEBAPE
“Think ‘land-linked’ rather than
‘landlocked’”
… a view from Japan
Diplomatic dispatches ask about agro products, livestock feed, used car parts,
research and IT equipment among potential articles of trade between ‘the Land
of the Rising Sun’ and Africa’s oldest democracy
Instead of lamenting the geographic
location of Botswana as a landlocked
country, emphasis should be
on exploring opportunities that
can flow from this country’s
interconnectedness as a land-linked
country.
These are the refreshing views of
the Ambassador of Japan to Botswana,
Masahiro Onishi. Since he began his
assignment to this country on 7 September
2014, he has made an effort to elevate the
bilateral relations between Botswana and
Japan to a higher level. These efforts range
from cultural exchanges to investment
across a range of industries.
On various occasions since he presented
his letters of credence to President Ian
Khama, Ambassador Onishi has noted
that the bilateral relations between the
two countries go back 50 years. Within the
two-and-a-half years, he has concluded
business initiatives that have the potential
to benefit Botswana’s economy.
Speaking with the Ambassador in
his office on the fourth floor of Barclays
House on Khama Crescent in Gaborone
oceans away from his place of birth in
Hyogo Prefecture in Japan, inBusiness
learns of how the top Japanese envoy is
building on an existing cultural exchange
programme to increase Japan’s visibility in
Botswana through investment.
It is clear that he is never at a loss for
words when pointing out Botswana’s
strong points to audiences of potential
investors. “Botswana enjoys political and
economic stability and a robust judicial
system,” he says. “It has low corporate tax,
low foreign exchange controls, low official
corruption, stable commodity prices and
8
www.inbusiness.co.bw | Issue 12 | 2017

no strong regulations for foreigners.”
It is these positive pointers that
attracted a delegation from a Japanese
business federation to Botswana early last
year. “In February 2016, the delegation
met with an acting minister and highranking
government officials,” says
Ambassador Onishi. “It also attended
a business seminar hosted by Business
Botswana.”
The embassy treated the delegation to a
business lunch during which its members
met ministers, government officials and
entrepreneurs in an informal networking
environment. The Japanese being a nation
well known for a strong work ethic,
Ambassador Onishi never misses an
opportunity to communicate and teach
Batswana about his people’s exceptional
work culture.
Botswana and Botswana’s investment
climate even though South Africa shares a
long border with Botswana,” he notes. “But
through that visit, I think many Japanese
companies are interested in Botswana and
I will continue to make an effort to bring
more Japanese companies to this country.”
At present there are six companies from
the ‘Land of the Rising Sun’ operating in
Africa’s oldest democracy, which is out of
synch with the half century of relations
between the two countries and their shared
world view. However, this should soon
change because Ambassador Onishi says
the Embassy is in receipt of expressions of
interest to partner with local companies
at various levels across industries and that
such requests are increasing in frequency.
“The Embassy has received requests
from large and small to medium scale
businesses in Japan to gather market
information on Botswana to support
them in their search for partnerships,”
Ambassador Onishi confirms. The focus
of current requests embraces marketing
research to export agricultural products
to Japan, import of livestock feed from
Japan, import of used automobile parts to
Botswana from Japan and promotion of
IT equipment.
This is what Ambassador has to say
about his vision for Botswana: “I wish
Botswana could be the hub of SADC. It
is often said Botswana is a ‘landlocked
country’ but it can also be said Botswana
is a ‘land-linked’ country. I think it is
important for Botswana to be a logistics
hub.”
In his view, Botswana should consider
adding value on goods passing through
its territory to neighbouring countries
as an additional revenue stream because
the country is a natural hub of the SADC
region.
“In December 2015,
I appeared on Btv
to introduce Japan’s
business relations and
practices that could be
emulated by Batswana
where it is relevant to
do so,” he explains.
“It was a very good
experience for me to
introduce Japanese
business culture to
Batswana.”
Significantly, Ambassador Onishi’s
efforts to present Botswana as an ideal
place of business for Japanese investors
are not limited to the two countries.
For example, the Embassy of Japan to
Botswana, in partnership with BITC, last
year hosted a seminar in South Africa to
inform Japanese business owners there
about business opportunities in Botswana.
Ambassador Onishi and then CEO of
BITC Letsebe Sejoe also visited Japaneseowned
businesses in South Africa to speak
about Botswana’s business viability.
While the seminar and tour went well,
the Ambassador has expresses concern at
the poor level of familiarity with Botswana
among the Japanese just across the border
to the south. “Frankly speaking, Japanese
companies did not know much about
www.inbusiness.co.bw | Issue 12 | 2017 9

INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS
looks at Removing Bogus Accounts
Facebook recently announced that they
will start weeding out bogus accounts by
watching for suspicious behaviour such as
repetitive posts or torrents of messages.
The security improvement was described
as being part of a broader effort to rid
the leading social network of hoaxes,
misinformation, and fake news by making
sure people are who they claim to be.
"We've found that when people represent
themselves on Facebook the same way
they do in real life, they act responsibly,"
Shabnam Shaik of the Facebook protect
and care team said in a blog post.
"Fake accounts don't
follow this pattern, and
are closely related to the
creation and spread of
spam."
Accounts suspected of being bogus are
suspended and holders asked to verify
identifies, which scammers typically don't
do, according to the California-based
social network.
In France, the new tactic has already
resulted in Facebook taking action against
30,000 accounts believed to be fakes,
Shaik said, “We’ve made improvements to
recognise these inauthentic accounts more
easily by identifying patterns of activity –
without assessing the content itself."
"With these changes, we will also reduce
the spread of material generated through
inauthentic activity, including spam,
misinformation, or other deceptive content
that is often shared by creators of fake
accounts."
Under pressure to stymie the spread of
fake news, Facebook has taken a series of
steps including making it easier to report
such posts and harder to make money from
them. Facebook also modified its displays
of trending topics to find stories faster,
capture a broader range of news, and help
ensure that trends reflect real world events
being covered by multiple news outlets.
Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg has
sought to deflect criticism that the huge
social network may have been used to fuel
the spread of misinformation that affected
the 2016 US presidential race.
Facebook last week unleashed a new
weapon in the war against "revenge
porn" at the social network as well as
the messaging services Messenger and
instagram.
When intimate images shared on
Facebook without permission are reported,
confirmed and removed, the company will
use photo-matching technology to prevent
copies from being shared again on its
platform.
Source: AFP News
Car Manufacturing Makes A Return In Kenya
Volkswagen’s decision to open a car assembly
plant in Kenya has provided a welcome
boost to efforts to attract more high-value
manufacturing into sub-Saharan Africa.
At present, there is little automotive manufacturing
on the continent anywhere between South Africa
and North Africa, with the exception of Nigeria.
Such assembly plants are a decent halfway house
between having no automotive industry and
full-scale manufacturing. They are much easier to
develop and it is far quicker to train workers.
The German company began production at its
Kenyan facility, at Thika just outside Nairobi, in
January, 40 years after it closed its original Kenyan
plant. The new factory receives part assembled
Polos and Vivos from Volkswagen South Africa’s
To page 11
10
www.inbusiness.co.bw | Issue 12 | 2017

World Bank Plots $60bn War Chest
for Africa
The World Bank Group is
beginning to work out the details
of its new financing package for
Sub-Saharan Africa.
Record funding of $57bn over
three years was announced at
a meeting of the G20 Finance Ministers in
Baden Baden Germany on in March but
details of how the money will be used are still
being decided. World Bank Group President
Jim Yong Kim has also signalled a change
of policy or at least culture by insisting that
his organisation will no longer tell African
governments what to do.
Kim said: “With this commitment, we will
work with our clients to substantially expand
programs in education, basic health services,
clean water and sanitation, agriculture,
business climate, infrastructure, and
institutional reform. This financing will help
African countries continue to grow, create
opportunities for their citizens, and build
resilience to shocks and crises.”
Some of the money will be directed at
regional initiatives, such as supporting
refugees and their host communities. It will
also fund regional cooperation initiatives, such
as the Niger River Basin Management Project,
which will enable the Niger Basin Authority
to promote greater economic, social, political
and security cooperation in the Sahel.
The World Bank will launch the new Private
Sector Window, which will promote trade
through lending in local currencies. The new
finance package will strengthen the trend of
the multilaterals increasingly cooperating
with the private sector. The target areas for
private sector cooperation across the Group
are infrastructure, financial markets and
agribusiness.
The International Development Association
(IDA) will get $45bn, the International
World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim
Finance Corporation (IFC) $8bn and the
International Bank for Reconstruction
and Development (IBRD) will get $4bn.
In addition, the Multilateral Investment
Guarantee Agency (MIGA) will continue
to offer political risk insurance and credit
services on the continent. The budget covers
the period from the start of July 2017 to the
end of June 2020.
The IBRD will focus on health, education
and infrastructure projects, while the IFC will
increase its investment in areas that suffer
conflict or have a fragile security situation. It
will also increase climate-related investments.
The region will receive the lion’s share
of the IDA’s global $75bn budget and the
IDA’s priorities for the period will be:
Tackling conflict, fragility and violence;
building resilience to crises including forced
displacement, climate change, and pandemics;
reducing gender inequality; promoting
governance and institution building; and
promoting job creation and economic
transformation.
Source: African Business News
Car Manufacturing Makes A Return In Kenya
From page 10
(VWSA) Uitenhage assembly plant in the
Eastern Cape for final assembly. It will
handle 1,000 cars this year, increasing
over time to 5,000 units.
Announcing the launch in Nairobi,
VWSA Managing Director and
Chairperson Thomas Schäfer said: “We
believe that Kenya has got the potential
to develop a very big fully-fledged
automotive industry. The East African
Community has got the potential, and today
is the first step in this direction that we want
to take with our passenger cars.”
Other companies, such as Toyota,
Nissan and Mitsubishi already have similar
facilities in Kenya, mainly producing
buses and trucks rather than cars. Total
production stands at about 10,000 units
a year, according to the Kenya Vehicle
Manufacturers Association (KVMA).
VWSA is also in talks with the
government of Rwanda over opening a
similar facility there. In Kenya it would be a
joint venture with the government. Schäfer
said: “We have not settled on a model yet.
Once we do, we will work out the details. In
principle, it could be possible to start vehicle
assembly in Rwanda by the end of 2017.”
Volkswagen also plans to launch a ridehailing
service, along the same lines as Uber,
in Rwanda, possibly using an electric version
of the Golf.
Source: African Business News
www.inbusiness.co.bw | Issue 12 | 2017 11

COVER STORY
12
www.inbusiness.co.bw | Issue 12 | 2017

Knight Ganje: The tycoon
who slept in a spaza shop
A conversation about a yellow Hummer led to a meeting with Jagdish
Shah, Botswana’s king of distribution and marketing. The rest is history
Over the last decade,
the African
Renaissance has been
a commanding topic
around the world.
Accordingly, the theme
of ‘Africa Rising’ has
made headlines in
global media as international investors
looked for a new economic frontier.
The continent that was routinely
brutalized by war, battered by poverty
and wearied by famine is undergoing
a revival, making it an attractive
investment destination. Coupled with
the rise in commodity prices over the
last 10 years, a growing middle-class
and visionary economic policies, Africa
has become the place to be.
No one knows this better than
Knight Ganje, a young Zimbabwe-born
businessman who came to Botswana
12 years ago with hardly two coins
to rub together but is now one of
African's most buoyant entrepreneurs
who bristles with confidence when he
says there is no better time than today
to be doing business in the Mother
Continent.
Ganje is the CEO of H&G Group, a
pan-African advertising agency that is
spreading its wings across the continent
from east to west, north to south. An
unassuming man with a functional,
yet cool sense of fashion, this is not
your average ‘ad man.’ Only a few items
betray the possibility that he may be
successful - his watch and the luxury
German SUV from which he alights to
meet for the interview.
His modest façade notwithstanding,
Ganje has been recognised by Forbes
Africa as one of the continent’s top 30
young entrepreneurs to look out for
in 2017. Afterall, it is the business of
the influential magazine to identify
exceptional enterprise from bud to
bloom. And so once he was on their
radar, the 29-year old soon made the
cut as one of the most brilliant business
minds on the African continent.
"It’s a great feeling to be recognised,"
he says of the rare accolade. “The truth
is that we have put in a lot of hard
work building this brand, which is an
authentic home-grown success without
the ‘primitive’ shade of the meaning of
‘home-grown.’ The recognition comes
at a time of growth for the advertising
agency."
But his journey has not been an
exponential trajectory. Far from it, after
fleeing dwindling personal prospects
and an ever-worsening economy
back home in Zimbabwe, for some
time Ganje lived in cramped quarters
inside a tuckshop at a relative’s home
in Gaborone. Compelled to become
something of a stoic, he accepted his
circumstances but decided to think
outside the box in which he literally
lived.
"I came to Botswana when I was 17
years old with a passion for media,”
Ganje explains. “It was after spending
some time here that I realised there
was an opportunity to build brands. I
was living with a relative, my sleeping
quarters a tuckshop in his yard. I
plotted my survival and eventual
success right there."
His first attempt to work in
advertising did not meet with much
success, but he persevered until he
approached retail giant Shoprite.
"They gave me an opportunity to do
some radio commercials for them,
www.inbusiness.co.bw | Issue 12 | 2017 13

and that led to my big break," he
recalls. Registering some success
after obtaining professionals to help
him with messaging and imaging
to appropriate audiences and the
market, Ganje aimed at continual
improvement.
And then the sighting of a Hummer:
"A conversation with a friend about
breaking into the cash loan business
led to whom I could approach as an
investor,” he explains. “There was a
yellow Hummer H2 about town and I
inquired about who owned it. I finally
landed on Jagdish Shah's doorstep. He
listened but was not much interested.
Even so, he gave me something greater
than investment - mentorship."
Shah is the miracle mogul who
came from India in 1993 and set
up Botswana’s biggest distribution
company, CA Sales and Distribution,
that employs over 1 000 people.
According to Investor Magazine,
his web of investments range from
properties, IT businesses and
dividend income
to
advertising,
health and
fitness
and other
private
businesses. It is said the tycoon’s
investments are so vast and diverse
that it is difficult to determine his net
worth.
It is this man who took Ganje by
the hand to show him the way. "I never
asked for money,” says Ganje. “Just
guidance. And that created mutual
respect that is now 10 years strong.
Jagdish is quite a generous man with
his time. Despite being my mentor, he
only became a shareholder in H&G
much later."
The magic formula of Ganje and the
man increasingly known as ‘The Shah’
has seen H&G become an African
multinational with a presence in the
continent’s leading economies of South
Africa, Nigeria and Kenya, as well
as in Zambia. “We will continue to
grow our footprint," Ganje says with
a quiet confidence. "We are the only
indigenous ad agency that is growing at
this rate and we intend to become the
leading player wherever we go.”
To that end, H&G will take
advantage of existing synergies in
certain countries. The company is
on the verge of concluding a deal to
acquire a Kenyan ad agency that has
operations in five other countries along
the Horn of Africa. Ganje enthuses:
“I’m very excited about this Kenya deal
because it will enable us to become
probably the largest advertising agency
on the continent.”
The brands under H&G care are
among the largest on the continent
and beyond. These include ubiquitous
names like Coca-Cola, Unilever,
Emirates and Samsung. “Shoprite,
who were my first client
when the business
started, continue to be
with us in our African
odyssey,” he says.
But what is the
future of advertising
in Africa? “Digital
technology,” the
answer comes like
a reflex.
“Print is not dead
yet; not in Africa. But
the superhighway of
digital technology
lies ahead and is
beckoning. Africa
cannot afford to
ignore the rise of
digital marketing.
That is why we have
invested in a digital
agency in Pretoria,
South Africa.”
He answers a question about his
advice to budding entrepreneurs in
a manner that reveals the awe with
which he regards Shah. “Be in good
company,” he says in clear reference
to his mentor. “It is important to
remember that passion alone will not
carry your dreams. In my evolution as
an entrepreneur, I have ensured that
I’m never the smartest person in the
room. Passion has to be matched with
knowledge and skill. That is why I get
the best accountants and the best HR
people, among others.”
But he warns against the blunder of
asking mentors for money: “This is a
grave mistake that a lot of young people
make,” says Ganje. “Your mentor is
there to guide you and not to give you
money. It discourages successful people
to mentor others when mentors are
asked to invest in the business. Let that
happen by itself.”
He reveals that he has his sights
trained on technology as his target for
diversification because “technology
is the next frontier of growth”. That
is where I’m looking to increasingly
invest.”
But what is the aim in end? “In
my view, money is no longer of
such importance,” says Ganje, now a
philosopher. “I have all I need: I have
food to eat, clothes to wear, a house to
live in. I’m okay. My ambition is not be
a billionaire or anything like that. My
purpose is to make an impact.”
14
www.inbusiness.co.bw | Issue 12 | 2017

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www.inbusiness.co.bw | Issue 12 | 2017 15

EXECUTIVE PROFILE
16
www.inbusiness.co.bw | Issue 12 | 2017

‘THE WHOLE PLANET REPORTS TO ME’
Take it from inBusiness, the speaker is not as self-important as it sounds. As one at the helm of
Africa’s oldest national airline carrier, Hailu is simply stating a fact because Ethiopian is turning
70 this year and spreading its wings further as the flag bearer of the continent’s only country that
was never colonised, writes TUDUETSO TEBAPE
If there was a category for the most
ideal place to conduct an interview,
the winner of such a prize would
be the setting inside Ethiopian
Airlines’ Boeng 737 800 at Sir Seretse
Khama International Airport for the
interview for the Executive Profile
section of this edition of inBusiness
Magazine.
Our ‘quarry’ is a handsome and
unmistakably friendly - if somewhat
slight - man whose
modesty is quite
incongruent with
the usual toffeenosed
attitude of the
‘fat cats’ who inhabit
environs such this
and out of touch
with the fact that
his country is the
only one in Africa
that has never
been colonized by
European powers.
After obtaining
special clearance to
board the stationary
aircraft for the
interview with the
MD of Ethiopian Airlines International
Services, Esayas Woldemariam Hailu, we
are beginning to enjoy the tableau when
it is revealed that the plane that we are
sitting in will depart for Addis Ababa
in a few minutes, thus leaving a total 10
minutes to conclude the interview.
He is here to sample a newly acquired
route that transits through Victoria Falls
on the flight from Addis to Gabs. Hailu
is happy to see us and does not seem
bothered by our encroaching on his
limited time.
Without any further ado, he delves
into his association with Africa’s oldest
national airline carrier, Ethiopian Airlines,
as we get down to business straight away.
“I joined Ethiopian Airlines fresh from
school in 1990 after pursuing science as
a student,” he says. “I have worked here
for 27 years and haven’t worked anywhere
else.”
This brings to mind
leadership expert,
John C. Maxwell, who
places a high premium
on consistency as
factor of success.
“When you live with
consistency, you
learn that the rewards
you seek in life don’t
come after you take
one step; they come
when you’ve taken
a journey to a place
you’ve never been,”
the guru once said.
For Hailu,
c o n s i s t e n t
commitment to work
www.inbusiness.co.bw | Issue 12 | 2017 17

saw him steadily rise up the ranks at
Ethiopian Airlines, taking him on flights
around the world and developing him in
his career in the aviation industry. But
his position was first on terra firma at
the airport in Cargo, followed by Space
Control and Revenue Management.
Next came a series of transfers to various
overseas stations, among them Nigeria,
Greece and Germany before making the
full circle to the Cargo department back
home as Vice President. “From Vice
President of Ethiopian Airlines Cargo,
I became MD of Passenger Services and
then MD of International Services that
covers Tokyo to Toronto, Seoul to Sau
Paulo, Bangkok to Bamako, and just about
everywhere else in between.
“So the whole planet reports to me as
far as Ethiopian Airlines is concerned,”
Hailu says matter-of-factly, he who sits
at the helm of what is arguably Africa’s
most successful national flag carrier that
celebrates its 70th anniversary this year, a
significant milestone for any entity by any
standards.
He cites a dedicated workforce,
good customer care and a visionary
management team as key factors that have
contributed to the airline’s staying power.
It comes to light that no other airline in
Africa - or for that matter, in the entire
world - has as much history as Ethiopian,
as the airline is increasingly being referred
to. To better appreciate the success of
Ethiopian Airlines, it is necessary to
consider the prevailing geopolitical
climate in Africa when the airline first
took to the sky.
At this point, Hailu ‘transmogrifies’ into
a professor of history. “When we started
to traverse the African sky in 1945, our
commercial tagline was “Bringing Africa
Together” because the only viable way to
fly from one part of Africa to another was
via either Paris or London,” he explains.
“There was no connectivity in Africa. The
continent did not have national carriers
because it was colonised by Britain,
Belgium, France, Portugal or Spain.”
“However, because Ethiopia has been
Ethiopia for millennia, the country took
it upon itself as a civic responsibility to
the continent to develop an airline that
could claim the African sky for Africa.
We fulfilled this duty to our continent by
building the largest African network in the
entire history of aviation by any airline, by
any standard - European, American or the
Gulf nearby.”
Hailu is understandably proud of this
achievement because even before the
Partition of Africa that at once regulated
and furthered the despoliation of the
continent between 1881 and 1914, the
colonisation and plundering of Africa by
European powers had been monstrously
vicious. And except for the brief invasion
by Mussolini’s fascist forces that lasted
seven months to May 1936, Ethiopia
stands out as the only country that never
came under the yoke of a European power.
While Liberia may lay claim to a similar
status, it quivers in the attempt because
the land that constitutes the West African
country was bought by the American
Colonisation Society for settling freed
slaves and free-born African-Americans
in the early 1800s.
At present, Ethiopian Airlines has more
than 55 destinations across the continent.
It is well placed to spread its wings further
under a strategic vision of linking Africa
with the rest of the world. This is being
promoted through the airline’s new tagline
of “The New Spirit of Africa.” To that end,
Hailu declares himself eager to dispel any
remaining misconceptions about Africa.
“After being perceived as a place of
conflict, famine and misery, Africa has all
the potential now,” he says. “We’re helping
people to see Africa in the new light; to
see what Africa represents in terms of
investment opportunities, history, culture,
wildlife and so on.”
As the clock ticks towards the end of our
allotted 10 minutes, at precisely 9 minutes
and 11 seconds, it becomes as clear as
the open sky that this man’s sense of
duty is almost ineffable. “Aviation is very
exciting,” he says with the enthusiasm of
one who never tires of his job.
“While it is admittedly very glamorous
because there is never a dull moment,
the dynamics keep changing all the time.
And so focus is of the essence. Aviation
connects massive numbers of people
and huge amounts goods. Think of it this
way: where you need 3 000 kilometres
of railways, you can have only three
kilometres of runway and connect people,
goods and services.”
18
www.inbusiness.co.bw | Issue 12 | 2017

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www.inbusiness.co.bw | Issue 12 | 2017 19

ECONOMY
Lack of Opportunities for Young Africans a Concern
The Topic for the 2017 Governance Weekend was “Africa’s Tipping Point”
Marrakech: Creating economic
opportunities for young
Africans is the most
urgent challenge facing the
continent, threatening to
undermine recent progress
and create widespread instability, according
to Mo Ibrahim.
Mo Ibrahim, Chairman of the Mo
Ibrahim Foundation, said: “Young people
in Africa are becoming disillusioned. What
will happen if we do not provide jobs when
the tsunami of young people currently in
education start looking for work? We will
see further migration out of Africa and
an increased threat of extremism. African
governments and businesses must come
together, as a major of urgency, to ensure
that we are equipping our young people
with the skills they need take control of
their futures.”
Mo Ibrahim was speaking at the 2017
Ibrahim Governance Weekend, a threeday
series of special events hosted by the
Foundation in Marrakech, 7-9th April.
At the heart of the weekend was the
Ibrahim Forum, bringing together leaders
from across Africa and around the world
to discuss Africa at a Tipping Point, new
research from the Foundation that reveals a
“defining moment in Africa’s progress”.
The report, launched earlier this month,
calls on African nations to harness the
energy, and meet the expectations, of their
young people to ensure that the progress
of recent years is maintained. The Ibrahim
Forum explored three areas of particular
concern for young people in Africa.
The first session focused on the link
between governance and terrorism,
highlighting how the vacuum created
through weak governance can create fertile
ground for violent extremism.
Stressing the need for early intervention
in areas of failing governance, Jean-Marie
Guéhenno, President and CEO of the
International Crisis Group, said: “Over
time, chaos begins to set in and then
20
www.inbusiness.co.bw | Issue 12 | 2017

terrorism prospers on chaos. Terrorism
comes after a long period of neglect, and
it is that neglect that prevention must
address.”
Martin Kobler,
Special Representative and Head of the
United Nations Support Mission in Libya,
said: “In mediation, we talk mostly to men
above the age of 70. Youth is often totally
detached from this process, but they are the
majority of the population. They are not
only the future of the country, they’re the
present of the country.”
Aya Chebbi,
Founding Chair of the African Youth
Movement and a Mo Ibrahim Foundation
Fellow, said: “It’s not being jobless that
drives youth to terrorism. It’s the perception
of injustice.”
The second panel explored the risk of a
democratic recession in Africa.
Amina J Mohammed,
Deputy Secretary-General of the United
Nations, called on young people to become
more involved in the democratic process.
“We need an inter-generational transition. I
don’t think people over a certain age should
be at the helm of affairs looking at the
future for people who are 60 years younger.”
Graça Machel
Founder of the Graça Machel Trust,
called for more diverse institutions:
“Democracy is about the voice of the
majority. But our majorities in Africa – the
Graça Machel
rural people, the women, the youth – have
very little say in what is happening. We
need serious thought on how to build
institutional capacity at different levels to
take into account all voices.”
The third panel addressed the challenge
of inclusive economic growth and
employment.
Moulay Hafid El Alamy,
Moroccan Minister of Industry, Trade,
Investment and Digital Economy, said:
“Africa can take control of its own destiny.
We have men and women of great quality.”
Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala
Chair of the Board of the Global
Alliance for Vaccines and Immunization,
highlighted Africa’s vast potential: “If you
look at the evidence, what we do not lack
on the continent is aspiration. We are
always about potential. What we need to do
is make that aspiration real for our youth.”
Aliko Dangote,
Dangote Group, stressed the importance
of policy stability for investment and
growth, and in creating jobs for young
people: “In business, unless you plan, there’s
no way you’re going to execute. Nobody
will go into a country where there is no
stability and invest their money there.”
Akinwumi Adesina
President of the African Development
Bank, highlighted the importance of
empowering women. “A bird can only fly
on two wings. Africa is going nowhere if it
is only flying on one wing. We have got to
enable women.”
Concluding the forum, Mo Ibrahim said:
“We need to fight for a much better Africa.
Africa is huge¬ – to move it forward we
need everyone to come together.”
The Ibrahim Governance Weekend
celebrated the Foundation’s tenth
anniversary. Over the last decade, the
Foundation has established a number of
initiatives, including the Ibrahim Prize and
Ibrahim Index, to strengthen leadership
and provide the data to enable countries to
improve standards of governance.
At a Leadership Ceremony on Friday 7th
April, guests from Morocco and around the
world celebrated progress and achievement
in African leadership.
Delivering a message from His Majesty
King Mohammed VI of Morocco, Andre
Azoulay, Advisor to the King, said: "I
congratulate Mo Ibrahim on his efforts
towards improved governance in Africa…I
was keen to grant my patronage to your
conference given the special interest I
take in the preservation of our citizens’
security and fundamental rights, as well as
in human and sustainable development in
Africa."
Speaking on the challenge of leadership
in today’s world, Horst Köhler, former
President of Germany, said: “We have
become used to the cynical idea that
truthfulness is detrimental to successful
political leadership…The erosion of trust
in institutions and public leaders is, in
my view, one of the major causes for the
political and economic problems in Europe,
the United States, and in Africa.”
The ceremony showcased Africa’s
extraordinary musical talent, with
performances from some of the continent’s
biggest stars. Senegal’s Youssou N’Dour,
Benin’s Angélique Kidjo and South Africa’s
Hugh Masekela were joined onstage by one
of Morocco’s own stars, Hindi Zahra.
On Sunday 9th April, the Foundation
hosted the Ibrahim Governance Cup, a
public football match. Five-time CAF
Champions League winners TP Mazembe,
from the Democratic Republic of Congo,
took on Morocco’s Kawkab Marrakech. In a
close-fought game played at Kawkab’s home
ground, Grand Stade de Marrakech, the
hosts were narrowly beaten 1-0.
The weekend culminated with a huge
public concert involving a host of musicians
from Morocco and west Africa. Thousands
of people from Marrakech were treated to
performances by local stars Hoba Hoba
Spirit, Hindi Zahra, Hamid El Kasri and
Van, performing alongside Youssou N’Dour
and Angélique Kidjo.
www.inbusiness.co.bw | Issue 12 | 2017 21

In IN CAREER
22
www.inbusiness.co.bw | Issue 12 | 2017

KELLY =Jurist +VERVE x INTEGRITY
When a beautiful woman is a jurist on course to promote labour as a factor of production that should be
properly rewarded, and the same feminist can grow plants without soil, the future of society can only be bright,
writes MBAKI TJIYAPO
For the longest time we
have heard how a certain
Kewagamang was a pain in
the government’s side. Because
of the no-nonsense image
that precedes this name, we
assumed it was a man. And
then you meet the legend and are nonplussed
because before you stands a woman who is
as prepossessing as she is confident.
This one has the feline grace of a cat that
knows its prey too. And how to corner it
into submission before it can strike back.
A curious aspect is how this woman can
achieve this without sustaining so much as
a dent in her integrity. In some creatures,
a good amount of this ability is inherent,
although the skill can also be learnt with
training and honed with practice.
As much as survival can depend on such
skills because in the jungle that is justice
and the law, a small misstep can result in
a complete reversal of roles in which the
hunter becomes the hunted. This woman is
aware of this to a point where she can follow
her quarry by its scent and then strike.
As her adversaries – real or imagined -
will tell you, in the games of manoeuvre that
lawyers like to engage in, Kelly’s courtroom
cunning can be stealthy and therefore
difficult to predict. Otherwise where would
she be? Afterall, the thrust of her family
name, Kewagamang, raises the question of
to whom this compelling personage belongs.
A product of public education all the way
from primary school in her native Kanye to
UB in Gaborone, anyone would be forgiven
for mistaking the twang in the tone of Kelly
Kewagamang’s voice for a product of private
school education. Although she was initially
admitted to study the humanities, she
subsequently changed course to pursue law
because she believed the social arts were not
sufficiently challenging.
After graduating with a general law
degree in 2005, Kelly, as she is better known,
landed an opportunity at Lerumo Mogobe
Associates with whom she had spent a stint
as a student. It was while there that she made
the acquaintance of Tshiamo Rantao, a
friendship that she treasures to-date because
it led to the two strutting out to form
their own practice, Rantao Kewagamang
Attorneys, in July 2007.
This marked her first experience of
independence as a fully-fledged partner in
a firm that soon became a force to reckon
with.
This was at a time when starting a law
firm was daunting and many thought it
would never see the light of day. But driven
in part by the working relationship that
Kewagamang has with Rantao, today the
firm has a preeminence in the area of human
rights, especially on the labour front. With
three female and two male attorneys and a
preponderance of women in its employ, it is
also in front of others in matters of gender
and children’s rights.
In this progressive climate and rights
culture, criminal cases tend to be abjured.
But with assertive women everywhere,
doesn’t Rantao feel isolated? “Not at all,” says
Kewagamang.
“You should hear him
speak about women’s
issues. He works very
well with women and
is infact an advocate
of women’s rights.
But we are an equal
opportunity company
that does not set out
to exclude men.”
She explains that because the distaff
section of society is in a struggle for equality,
the firm has embraced its evolving prowomen
culture. To this end, in September
2013 Rantao Kewagamang Attorneys won
a case of “grave constitutional importance”
that empowered Batswana women by
entrenching their rights to land when the
www.inbusiness.co.bw | Issue 12 | 2017 23

court found that customary law offended
against Section 3 of the Constitution of
Botswana on equal protection of the law.
In the watershed case that was celebrated
internationally, customary law was tossed
aside for discriminating against women
purely on the basis of their sex by singling
out the lastborn son “as instestate heir to the
exclusion of his siblings”.
But if women are regarded as the soft
underbelly of society that needs to be
protected, children and the youth are
much more vulnerable. For that reason,
Kewagamang was both professionally and
personally involved when it emerged in
May last year that a local councillor had
impregnated a teenager in Sebina. She
took “the biggest risk of my life” when she
and others mounted the #IshallNotForget
campaign in an effort to protect children
against sexual marauders. Several of them
were detained - though briefly - as they stood
with protest placards at key intersections
around Gaborone, but Kewagamang
believes their point was made.
The firm is at the forefront of labour
issues in a country where organised labour
is viewed with circumspection – even
distaste – and this could have repercussions.
Kewagamang is aware of the possibility of
such an outcome but is unfazed because
the firm receives a fair share of government
business, especially consultancies. “Up to
30% of our consultancy work has come
from the government,” she says. “But we get
very little litigation work outsourced by the
government.
“Labour is an area that has evolved to
become a key aspect of the firm’s culture. We
are keenly aware that when there is bound
to be collision when you advance rights.
Nevertheless, rights have to be advanced
and we are happy that labour rights are
becoming entrenched in our country. And
this is happening in an environment that has
little support in terms of the protest culture
that we see in neighbouring countries. It
has been a difficult learning curve on both
sides, but the future looks quite good for
organised labour.”
Kewagamang says the firm is unshakable
in its human rights orientation. A deliberate
decision not to handle hard core criminal
cases so as to better play an upright role in
society was made early on. “Only 5% of our
work load entails criminal cases, and even
so nothing of the smoking gun stuff,” she
explains. “It is mostly traffic offences.
This dovetails well into her background
in pro bono work at UB Legal Clinic, as
well as her involvement with Somarelang
Tikologo where she is a board member and
at Ntebogang Junior Secondary School in
Kanye where the firm encourages good
grades by means of prizes. Because of her
zest for progressive work, this woman is a
part of Trust Law Connect that helps NGOs
access lawyers internationally.
So far an exception to the rule on giving
a wide berth to criminal cases has been
the forbidding matter of John Kalafatis, a
young man of Greek extraction who was
gunned down gangland style one May
night in Gaborone in 2009. Kewagamang
describes that episode as “the lowest point
in Botswana’s democracy” and one that
prompted Batswana, an otherwise passive
lot, to express their outrage and take a stand
on the side of due process and the rule of law.
“We have systems for a reason,” she notes.
“While some people say Kalafatis was a
criminal, we don’t know that because he was
charged and tried. It becomes something
else when anyone is killed by an organ of the
government.’’
Soldiers Goitsemang Sechele, Ronny
Matako and Boitshiko Maifala were
ultimately convicted of the murder of
Kalafatis in June 2011. However, they
received a Presidential Pardon and
were eventually reinstated, prompting
protestation from Ditshwanelo and
nationwide dismay. Kewagamang is among
lawyers who got involved at various stages
of the case.
At another level, Kewagamang is
concerned that persistent allegations
about the executive arm of government
intermeddling in the judiciary will erode
confidence in the country’s judicial system.
More importantly, she holds that public
interviews of candidates before judges were
appointed would enhance such confidence.
“We do not even
know the procedure
of appointing judges
of the Court of
Appeal.”
But what does the feminist think of
the male – female divide as crystallised
by the treat to kill law? “A lot of men do
not know how to deal with a
strong woman,” she avers.
“While empowering
women, we left the
boy child out and
now this boy child
does not know
how to handle
the empowered
woman.”
Being a social
activist, this 36-year old woman is a jurist
with a conscience. She is a trustee of Law
Fidelity Fund Guarantee, a board member
of Legal Aid Botswana, a board member
of Somarela Tikologo Environment Watch,
and a non- executive director of More Power
Investments.
Above all, she is a wife and a mother,
her marriage to Osego Garebamono, also
a lawyer, proving productive in the form
of their children, Tawanda and Lefika.
Kewagamang wants it known that she is
also a farmer through Smartest (Pty) Ltd.,
a horticulture business that is planning to
go into hydroponic farming as well. “We
have collaborated with a US franchise
in hydroponics,” she explains. “We have
already ordered the equipment which we
will set up at the farm as a demo facility. The
equipment will be for sale.”
Hydroponics, she explains, is a method of
growing plants without soil.
STOP PRESS!
On the day that this edition went
to press, 19 April 2017, attorney
Omphemetse Motumise was on course
to be appointed High Court judge, two
years after the President Ian Khama
turned down a recommendation of
the Judicial Service Commission to
do so.
The Law Society of Botswana and
Motumise added another landmark
victory at the Court of Appeal for
Rantao Kewagamang Attorneys.
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www.inbusiness.co.bw | Issue 12 | 2017 25

ENGAGE WOMEN
Finkie’s Funky Learners’ Game
Far from the rote system that relies on repetition for quite mindless memorisation, Edrevo
tackles boredom by actively engaging the learner and stimulating dialogue with the teacher,
writes MALEBOGO RATLADI
Here is an exceptional woman
who is on a quest to make
a difference in Botswana’s
education system and then
spread her wings over the
entire SADC region. And
her contraption - an easy-to-follow groovy
game of learning, really – is already
winning awards.
Eager to focus on her goal, Finkie
Tshabadira went into early retirement in
2015 when she was Head of Department
(HOD) at St. Joseph’s College at Kgale just
south of Gaborone. The year before, she
had registered Speed Series Education
Avenue, a company under which she
brought the educational board game that
she had invented and styled Edrevo.
The name is an acronym for ‘Education
Revolution,’ an apt one for a play-as-youlearn
multi-disciplinary tool that aims to
enhance the autonomy of students while
instructing them across a range of subjects
in the syllabus. This is a far cry from the
rote method that - although hard to replace,
especially at foundational levels - relies
on memorisation and quite mindless
repetition.
Tshabadira’s teaching career started
when she taught primary school as a Tirelo
Sechaba Participant (TSP) in 1986 way
before she obtained her BA Humanities at
the University of Botswana (UB) in 1992.
Her TSP station was Qangwa, a place in
Kgalagadi West that remains hardly a
dot on the map even after a controversial
movie, Jamie Uys’ The Gods Must Be Crazy,
was shot on location there in 1980.
She realised at that early stage that her
pupils were more attentive and tended
to learn better when she used teaching
aids. Whereupon she had this ‘discovery’
tucked away but securely at the back of her
mind when she embarked on a career as a
professional pedagogue at Ipeleng Junior
Secondary School in Lobatse as soon as
she completed her university training,
transferring to Lobatse Senior Secondary
School and Moshupa Senior Secondary
School in the same eventful year of 1992.
Tshabadira’s most ‘sedentary’ years as
a teacher of English and Geography were
between 2003 and 2008 at Seepapitso
Senior Secondary School in Kanye where
her progression as HOD took root and
blossomed, whence she went to Kgari
Sechele Senior Secondary School in
Molepolole in the same post. Her next
station was St. Joseph’s College, the senior
secondary school whose pass rate was
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already legendary when she entered the
gates of the missionary institution at the
beginning of 2012.
St. Joseph’s being renowned for a
type of discipline where the concept of
the student as a disciple of his or her
teacher is considered fundamental to
learning, Tshabadira must have found
the environment enriching, thus giving
renewed impetus to her quest of enhancing
learners’ absorption of education. At the
age of 47 three years later, she opted for
early retirement so as to better focus on
bringing her idea to fruition.
But she was still full of verve and vigour,
and so she contracted with the Botswana
University of Agriculture and Natural
Resources (BUAN) to take international
students for English during 2016. “I have
always been passionate about teaching and
obtaining good results,” she says. “That
is why I have always used teaching aids
because instruction becomes interactive,
the students creative; and there is dialogue
with the teacher.”
While at ‘St. Joe’ - as the Catholic school
is affectionately referred to, especially by
its older alma mater who always assert
that it is an “institution of learning” rather
than a mere school - her House almost
always emerged the best in activities both
academic and extra-curricular. And it just
so happened that it was the Cheetah House,
named after the fastest land animal that can
reach speeds of up to 120km/h and a crafty
creature that can stalk its prey to within
100m.
But inspite of her school’s superior pass
rate, Tshabadira was always troubled by the
progressive decline in the performance of
students countrywide. “I took a critical look
at the challenges faced by students today
and noted their short attention span,” she
explains.
“It was obvious that
fun was the critical
element that was
missing, especially in
revision. The result, and
hopefully the answer, is
Edrevo. The game aims
at developing a learner’s
ease of absorption and
independence.”
Indeed, convenience was never so real,
innovative and home-grown in so far as
education in Botswana is concerned. The
machine comes packed with material to
prepare students for the entire gamut of
PSLE, JCE and BGCSE.
Early in 2016, Tshabadira flew to China
to make copies of the board game, spending
P25 000 from her own pocket to seal
the deal. The next step is now to mount
countrywide student competitions using
the Edrevo board game. She is collaborating
with another innovative educationist,
Mphoentle Mathodi, whose mission is
“to help learners become independent by
relying on their own strengths, skills and
abilities (see inBusiness March 2017).”
These women pack a punch when it
comes to matters educational and obtaining
good grades for students. By agreement,
Tshabadira’s company, Speed Series
Education Avenue, extends units of Edrevo
to Mathodi’s company, Teenshop Services,
that runs coaching clinics for students
countrywide.
Finkie’s funky creation has already won
her the 2016 WIBA Innovator of the Year
award after the innovator took 1st prize
at the 2015 Women’s Expo. In the same
year, Tshabadira gained much-coveted
exposition when Edrevo was put on display
during an exhibition at the French Embassy
on Bastille Day (July 14) in Gaborone, one
of only two products to make the selection
for the prestigious occasion.
Before this year is out, the two women
will have a presence on the World
Wide Web by means of an app for the
convenience of on-line learners. Tshabadira
has a sense of charity too, donating 24
groovy Edrevos to (Lobatse) Hill School
Primary.
About Edrevo
Edrevo, which is short for Education
Revolution, is an educational board
game with a wide range of subjects
from Primary School Leaving
Examination (PSLE) to Junior
Examinations Certificate (JEC)
and Botswana General Certificate
of Secondary Education (BGCSE).
The idea is to improve the academic
performance of learners by means of
studying in a fun filled way. It has both
structured and multiple questions.
Basic instructions
The players take turns and give
answers to questions on cards. Then
the player moves his or her pawn
along a lane. The number of spaces
to be moved is written at the bottom
corner of the cards. This number is
determined by the level of difficulty
of the question. Like most games, the
first player to reach the end of the
track is the winner. If a player fails to
give the correct answer, the question
is passed on to the next player. If the
player gets the answer right, it is the
next player’s turn. Thus no one can
play twice. Should a player announce
the correct answer out of turn, the
player with the card is entitled to
move his/her pawn over the stipulated
number of spaces. It is important for
players to sit in their order of play. The
same thing applies to their pawns; the
person who plays first should have his/
her pawn in the first lane.
www.inbusiness.co.bw | Issue 12 | 2017 27

YOUTH INBUSINESS
MALEBOGO MARUMOAGAE
of BELLE LARISSA:
A Nexus of Beauty, Brains, Poise and a Dash of Class
BY MALEBOGO RATLADI
Said television personality, Jen Sue,
once: “Never rest on your laurels
because somewhere there is always
someone hotter, faster and better
than you.” Our own Malebogo
Marumoagae picks up the cue: “A
girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do: Earn your
hustle and make it count.”
She is none other than Miss Botswana 2006
who was that outstandingly prepossessing
presenter of Prime Time Life TV show on
Btv between 2008 and 2012. Before then,
Marumoagae had taught Social Studies at a
junior secondary school from when she was
only 18 years old. She is now the reigning
Young Female Entrepreneur after being voted
to that summit at the 2016 WIBA Awards in
October last year.
This top achiever says she is not losing
sleep over the fact that she is not working
as an economist in the conventional sense,
economics having been one of her doublemajor
degree at university.
At 33 end of June extant, she is the MD
of Belle Larissa, a company that she started
in 2009 to provide corporate training and
coaching in etiquette, image development
and personal branding. It was partly in quest
of self-fulfillment in a very primary sense
because she confesses to having felt the need
personally.
Speaking about Belle Larissa, Lebo’s face
takes on an unmistakable effervescence
as she explains that the mandate is to help
companies build a positive corporate culture
that is anchored on credibility, while staff must
embody the confidence to fit in the corporate
realm. “We ensure that at every level of the
company, employees represent the company’s
corporate brand and message both internally
and externally in a well-rounded manner,”
she says. “We ensure this at every level of the
company.”
An employee should be able to create
a prodigious impression when dealing
with clients. But while a major focus is on
companies, Belle Larissa’s curriculum can be
tailored for individual needs because this is
an all-associative outfit that also embraces
children under a Kiddies Programme. ‘Suffer
the little ones, etcetera and so following …’
Over the years since she founded Belle
Larissa, Marumoagae has grown to become
so familiar with the territory that etiquette
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is now ingrained in her. Infact, some will say
‘inherent’ best describes how she can discern
behaviour that is out of sync with etiquette
at just a glance. And this is not a skill to be
taken lightly in today’s world where poise and
presence can be of the essence in making or
breaking a deal, and where discernment itself
is an acumen built on refinement of conduct
and good judgement of character.
But this is achieved with little difficulty
because in Marumoagae, we are dealing with
a woman whose beauty and sartorial elegance
must have inspired her chosen name for her
enterprise, Belle Larissa, ‘belle’ being French
for just such a woman plus comportment and
a dash of sophistication.
Armed with a BA in Social Sciences
majoring in Economics and Population
Studies from the University of Botswana in
2006 and a Certificate in Etiquette obtained
from Colorworks International in South
Africa in 2014, Marumoagae fortified her
academic achievements by acquiring an MBA
in 2015. Her professional background, both
as a scholar and occupation, revolves around
dealing with etiquette on several levels. Even
her MBA dissertation was on “The Impact of
Personal Branding on Service Quality: The
Case of the Insurance Industry.”
There is some philosophy behind it too:
“It is important not just to have a passion for
something but to come full circle by studying
it,” she reasons.
Going back to basics, Marumoagae says
during her reign as Miss Botswana, she realised
an increasingly niggling need in herself.
“When I represented Botswana at Miss World
in China, I got intimidated,” she confesses.
“My confidence was
somewhat shaken. But
from that came a renewed
ambition to make it in life
and with it the rationale
that it is not always about
appearance but poise and
purpose from within as
well. In time I realised that a
nexus of personal imaging or
branding and good etiquette
were a synthesis that spoke
an international language
that is readily understood
everywhere.”
She adds: “Belle Larissa is all about
understanding oneself by embracing one’s
uniqueness and maximising it to work to one’s
advantage.”
Marumoagae says a part of her motivation
was a desire to help people reach their full
potential by means of something that had
never been done in Botswana before. With
an understanding that every culture has its
own etiquette, she decided to take a holistic
approach so that every occasion or situation
would have a tailor-made programme.
Her clients are trained in Business
Communication Etiquette, Protocol and
Business Etiquette, Dining Etiquette,
Telephone Etiquette, Grooming
and Poise, Professional Image,
International Etiquette and Personal
Branding, each of which is designed
to meet a client’s specific needs.
She has worked with CEDA,
Botswana Life, the Botswana Stock
Exchange and Letshego, to give a
sampling of her blue chip clients,
although she is not exclusive to
them because the thrust of her
portfolio is about growth. In a
nutshell, the idea is to build a
personal brand that helps a client’s
reputation along and aids the client
to help the company move forward.
For marketing, Maromoagae is
strong on social media to complement
the support she gets from Women
In Business Association (WIBA) and
Business Botswana. This young beauty
is a native of Tonota near Francistown
and has advanced plans to open a
branch of Belle Larissa at Botwsana’s
second city.
Meanwhile, according to Forbes
Woman Africa Magazine, the 2015
Deloitte Millennial Survey indicates
how millennials are tuned into the
purpose of a business, what a business
should do and its envisaged impact
before they venture into it. This
affirms Marumoagae’s message to
other young Batswana: “There is lot to
be done to better the state of service
delivery in Botswana,” she says. “It’s
about finding that one thing that can
help the country and venturing into it
to make a difference.”
She started from nothing and has
persevered inspite of detractors’ views
that her type of business could only
thrive in the West and in South Africa
because it was a Sekgowa thing. Today
this belle from Tonota is thankful to
God for her courage and sheer stick-toitiveness
to stay on because the clients are
happy and the shinplasters are coming in.
She is the firstborn of five siblings
– two girls ahead of three boys – and
says she is in a relationship that should
become productive in due course of time.
“Productive?” “In more ways than one,”
comes the answer. “At my age, I am not
dating for fun. I am looking forward to
getting married and having many, many
children.”
www.inbusiness.co.bw | Issue 12 | 2017 29

AVIATION
Young Hearts Fly High and Bright
… the ‘flying’ story of how young and old will together conquer gravity
in Botswana’s aviation industry
BY NATASHA SELATO
At 21 years of age, Loruo
Kewagamang has come
together with nine of his
friends to form an NGO of
apprentice pilots.
Styled Life from The Sky
Botswana (LiFTS), this innovative interest
group is geared at enrolling young people keen
on flying either as a career or hobby. The idea is
to function as a form of a foundation platform
into which professional flying schools can tap
into for trainee pilots and help young pilots
earn flight hours.
Though it is still a fledgling bird, LiFTS has
been around for a while, having been formed
in May last year. After taking a long hard,
look that swept from terra firma to outer
space, Kewagamang noticed that ‘old geezers’
far outnumbered nimble lads and lasses in
Botswana’s aviation industry.
While he laid no claim to socio-gerontology,
the young man purposed to do something
about the generation gap and realised that
experience alone could not explain the
longevity of the older generation in the
workplace of flying. The dearth of lads and
lassies in the cockpit was also responsible for
the retention of the baldpated lot – yes, men
of quite advanced ages with grey temples and
glistening plain crowns that resemble runways!
Kewagamang also realised that tuition fees
were a barrier that prevented the younger
generation from entering the industry of
Jonathan Livingstone Seagull, that rolling
inspirational 1970 novella by Richard Bach
about life and flight and how people can reach
a higher plane of existence by means of selfperfection.
The next stage entailed Kewagamang
coming together with his friends with whom
he approached professional pilots and
flight engineers, as well as student pilots of
both genders about working together to lift
Botswana’s aviation sector to a level where a
constant flow of native talent would be assured.
Today it is good to report that the group
of ambitious pacesetters was well-received,
hence LiFT is a 600-strong ‘movement’ whose
members see gravity as a force to conquer
rather than the sky as a limit. They aim to get
a place across the full spectrum of aviation as
pilots, flight engineers and dispatchers. There
are plans to add stewards in the near future.
“The common denominator among most
members is a level of enthusiasm that is not
matched by information and knowledge about
the aviation industry,” Kewagamang told
inBusiness in an interview recently.
“But we are thankful that we have been
received by great mentors who make up an
invaluable think tank. Life From the Sky
Botswana is about tapping into this reservoir
of knowledge and experience.”
The list of people in attendance at the launch
of Life From the Sky Botswana on March 18
at Blue Tree in Gaborone must have been
an inspiration that lifted the hearts of the
youthful potential aviators who make up the
membership of the interest group. It included
Carter Masire who spoke as the patron of LiFT,
the CEO of Blue Sky Airways Mark Spicer, and
the CEO of Civil Aviation Authority Botswana
Geoffrey Moshabesha.
An initiative dubbed “Tomorrow’s Pilots”
was announced at the launch and explained as a
means of helping place newly qualified pilots in
jobs in an industry where failure to accumulate
flight hours can lead to disqualification.
And so far from being cranky and eccentric,
the ‘old geezers’ are fine gentlemen with alert
minds and a willingness to help fledglings find
their wings.
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AVIATION
DJIBOUTI PILOT BECOMES FIRST AFRICAN
TO FLY SOLO AROUND THE WORLD
Odujinrin completes final leg of his journey to make history with the help of Project
Transcend, a foundation that aims to inspire young people achieve their goals regardless
of their personal circumstances
WASHINGTON DC, 29 MARCH 2017:
A pilot for Air Djibouti has become the first
African pilot in history to fly solo around the
world.
Ademilola "Lola" Odujinrin completed
the final leg of his historic journey this
afternoon, landing safely at Washington Dulles
International Airport.
The pilot has completed the entire
circumnavigation in a Cirrus SR22, stopping
in more than 15 countries on five continents,
returning to Washington DC where his journey
began back in September.
The flight is part of Project Transcend,
a foundation which aims to inspire young
people to achieve their goals regardless of their
personal circumstances.
Says Lola: “Ever since I was a child, I
dreamed of one day flying around the world.
We have a responsibility to lead by example
and follow our dreams. I want African children
to think: 'I can do this too!'
“I would like to extend my sincere gratitude
to Air Djibouti’s Chairman, Aboubaker
Omar Hadi, and Cardiff Aviation’s Chairman,
Bruce Dickinson, who have supported me
throughout this journey. Without them this
would not have been possible.”
Both formed part of a high-level delegation
to welcome the historic aviator on the tarmac
at Dulles Airport, including Mohamed Siad
Doualeh', Ambassador of Djibouti to the
United States, Dawit Michael Gebre-ab, Senior
Director of Strategic Planning for Djibouti
Ports and Free Zones Authority (DPFZA), and
Moussa Houssein and COO of Air Djibouti.
Other distinguished guests included the
CEO of Africa World Press which plans to
publish a book on the journey.
Lola has logged over 4,000 hours as a
commercial Boeing 737 pilot since earning his
pilot licence six years ago.
Says Chairman of Air Djibouti, Aboubaker
Omar Hadi: “By supporting initiatives like
Lola’s flight around the world, Air Djibouti
hopes to inspire a new generation of pilots in
Africa and help to pave the way for the aviation
industry to thrive in the region.
“The benefits will be felt within the region
as this will encourage more intra-African trade
and sustainable economic development. With
the commencement of the Single African Air
Transport Market (SAATM) set for June 2017,
air travel in the continent is positioned to grow
rapidly and become a key contributor to the
region’s economic and social development.”
Globally, the aviation industry represents
a massive opportunity for African economies
to play a larger role. It is estimated that 2017
alone will see approximately four billion
airline passengers worldwide as well as over
50 million tonnes of cargo being transported
by air.
[Portland Communications]
www.inbusiness.co.bw | Issue 12 | 2017 31

TOURISM
A Journey Through History Unveils Old Gaborone
TUDUETSO TEBAPE tells how a tour of Botswana’s capital can range from an aura of
the eerie to heroes of the liberation struggle
A tour of Gaborone with the Botswana Society tells seldom told stories of heroism and patriotism through THE CITY’S monuments and old
buildings. These monuments and historical sites scattered around Botswana’s capital also unearth little known stories about Botswana and its people.
They are a peak into the history of the nation that evokes a sense of pride and wonder. But some of the sites are actually places that people pass by
every day, unaffected by the wealth of information and history that could teach us just how much the city has developed since all those years ago
when construction began in 1964.
On a separate occasion prior to going on the Botswana Society’s tour, a conversation with historian Fred Morton reveals some of the appeal of
Gaborone that most people tend to miss. “The bottom line, in terms of the unique quality of this capital city, is that it is the only African capital built
from scratch after Independence or at the moment of Independence,” the historian says.
“In other words, it’s a capital which Batswana chose to build. Except Addis, any capital you want to name - Nairobi, Dar-es-Salam, most African
countries inherited their capitals. And they were stuck with the arrangements and the relegation of Africans to particular sections and so forth.
Gaborone does not have any of that.”
Professor Morton has been an eminent member of the University of Botswana’s history department on an off for 21 years. He thus speaks with
authority. He is also a member of the Botswana Society and adamant for inBusiness to go on this tour so that the magazine may help open the city’s
archaeological treasures for people to appreciate. We agree.
The National Museum and Art Gallery
01
On Independence Avenue, the National Museum and Art Gallery
was established by archaeologist Alexander ‘Alec’ Campbell (16 April
1932 – 24 November 2012) with the support of the government in
June 1967 but was officially opened by then Acting President Dr. Q.
K. J. Masire in September 1968. Campbell was Director Emeritus of
Botswana's Department of Wildlife and National Parks. He became
the first curator of the museum.
Of particular interest at the museum are artifacts of Botswana’s
colonial past, including a passenger car from Rhodesia Railway whose
racially segregated train used to carry people from Mafeking in South
Africa to Bulawayo in Rhodesia (Zimbabwe). Nearby an ox drawn
wagon harks back to what used to be a common mode of transport in
Bechuanaland and independent Botswana’s early days. An old Shell
paraffin pump tells the story of what an arduous manual task it must
have been for the attendant to serve customers a commodity that was
in use in almost every household.
Main Mall
Although we did not go to the Main Mall, we spoke
about the city’s oldest shopping centre that was designed
to be the pedestrian experience that it is to-date.
The vision behind its design was for it to be the city
centre with everything going up around it, including
the Town Hall, Parliament, schools, and the one
hospital then. At the corner of Independence Avenue
and Botswana Road lies Gaborone’s oldest church, the
famous Trinity, of the UCCSA denomination.
02
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Government Enclave
03
This hub of government offices gets its name
from the type of ‘business’ that is conducted
there. It is home to the National Assembly
(Parliament and Ntlo Ya Marena), the Office
of the President, the Attorney Generals’
Chambers, the Ministries of Finance, of
Foreign Affairs, of Home Affairs and of
Education, among others, as well as a war
memorial of Botswana’s fallen heroes of
WWII.
Otherwise called Pioneers Monument, the
war memorial ‘salutes’ the 10 000 Batswana
who died in action in WWII, one of whom
was yours truly’s maternal grandfather,
Molwa Sekgoma. He was among soldiers
who returned from the war front and later
passed away from natural causes. They are
equally commemorated on the monument.
Little is generally said about the sacrifices and
bravery of the African soldiers who fought in
what critics also call the Imperialist War, let
alone the Batswana contingent that made up
the largest number of any African country.
Viewed in this light, the significance of this
monument is multiplied.
Also on Government Enclave is the Heroes
Monument that pays tribute to members of
the BDF who died between 1977 and 1989.
This was the height of southern Africa’s
liberation struggle when Botswana became
a veritable battleground in which the Cold
War became very hot as forces of the white
minority regimes in South Africa, Rhodesia,
Angola Mozambique and South West
Africa effectively became proxies of Western
powers while the Eastern bloc used the ANC,
APLA, ZANLA, ZIPRA, SWAPO and the
MPLA to assert its worldview. The period
marks the formation of the BDF in 1977 and
the beginning of the process to dismantle
apartheid in 1989.
The last monument we view here is the
statue of Botswana’s founding president,
Sir Seretse Khama, which used to gaze on
people as they went past it between the Main
Mall to the east and the train station and bus
terminus to the west. Today the statue faces
Parliament where Seretse’s son, President Ian
Khama, took the oath of office in 2008.
The Village
Prison Tower
04
We learn that this neighbourhood actually predates much of the rest of the
city. It was built as a colonial village where the masters set up camp and ruled
the entire southern part of the High Commission territory of Bechuanaland.
“Colonial village” is an interesting morsel of information because Botswana is
always lauded as a country that was never colonised but rather ‘protected.’ This
‘Freudian slip’ is revealing because the description of Botswana as a ‘protectorate’
can be misleading since in every other way the ‘territory’ was a British
colony.
At The Village, we also visited a cemetery that is described as the final resting
place of approximately 116 white soldiers who died in the Anglo-Boer War
(1899 – 1902). Walking around the now neglected graveyard, the inscriptions
on the headstones are brief biographies of the people there interred and their
loved ones.
Says one: “To the loving memory of Sampson Couch French, Captain Royal
Irish regiment, eldest and dearly loved son of Savage and Fanny French.
Cuskiny, Queenstown, Ireland. Born Jan 23rd 1870. Killed in action when
gallantly leading an attack on Kopje near Crocodile Pools on Feb 12th, 1900.
‘Blessed are the pure in heart for they shall see the Kingdom of God.’”
05
We end our tour early at the Prison
Tower, which was originally a fort
that later became a prison. It is still
under the custodianship of Botswana
Prison Services that now uses it
as a document storage facility. This is
somewhat disappointing because it
may depreciate its value as a tourist
attraction. Yet the monument stands
tall for anyone to see. The rumour
of this tower having been the place
when death row inmates finally met
the hangman and their end imbues
it with an aura of the eerie.
www.inbusiness.co.bw | Issue 12 | 2017 33

TECHNOLOGY
Preserving History and Culture
Through Apps
Outstanding historian Jeff Ramsay looms large in the life of this s IT prodigy who has already
developed apps on the culture of Botswana’s different peoples for contemporary and future
generations, writes ONONOFILE LONKOKILE
After being turned away by
bankers who dismissed
his proposal as unfeasible,
Itumeleng Garebatshabe
has soldiered on and is
today a product evaluator
for none other than
Blackberry, the Canadian maker and
designer of a range of smartphones,
tablets and IT services that the world
cannot have enough of.
Technology has always been this
self-taught programmer’s first love after
being stung by the bug when he was
drawn to his older sister‘s IT books at the
tender age of 16. Since then, he has not
looked back and is currently running his
own cyber and application development
company, Intellegere Holdings.
Garebatshabe is an alumnus of
Informatics Computer School where
he studied for a Bachelor‘s degree in
Cyber Security. He wanted to go up to
a Master‘s level but decided to put the
ambition on hold in preference to staring
his company in 2007. This, he says, was
not an easy decision but the passion to
devote time and energy to developing
applications won in the end.
This is a young man with a lot of
spontaneity. He uses hand gestures to
emphasise his points as he explains
his mobile applications that have
helped sustain his business to this day.
Two apps, Learn Setswana and Learn
Kalanga, are among his most popular
downloads that are now also available
from mobile application stores.
Some are free to download while
others sell for as little as P10 while the
most expensive retails for P30. His latest
‘offering’ is a heritage series app about
Botswana’s different tribes, their histories
and their cultures. Over a 100 000 people
have downloaded this app to which the
developer is constantly adding more
peoples and more lowdown.
“Mobile applications
make learning
about one‘s culture
easy,” Garebatshabe
says.” With a 150%
penetration of mobile
phones in Botswana,
everyone can learn
about their own tribe.
Plus there isn’t enough
digital information on
Botswana tribes that is
readily available.”
Concern that future generations could
find themselves in limbo regarding
who they were and where they came
from drove the idea to create apps that
are solely focused on Botswana and
the history and culture of its different
peoples. He uses outstanding historian
Jeff Ramsay as a reservoir for material in
these apps.
“In this industry, patience is indeed a
virtue to uphold,” Garebatshabe says. “I
have seen developers give up in the face
of mounting challenges because they had
thought it would be easy. The reality is
that all start-ups are difficult and IT startups
double difficult.”
Patience has indeed worked for him.
In 2013, he beat no less than 10 000
applicants in Africa to become a product
evaluator for Blackberry Mobile. This
title, which he holds to this day, gave him
access to 1 500 Blackberry mobile phones
that are available exclusively to product
evaluators worldwide. And “access” here
means ownership. Since then, this IT
prodigy has developed applications on
languages, history and wallpaper for
Blackberry Z10.
Gabaretshabe plans to launch another
app on Botswana history before this
year’s Independence Day (September 30).
He and his team have already toured the
country to ‘hack’ into village elders for
history and to take pictures of historical
monuments.
He perseveres inspite of having been
turned away a countless times by bankers
whom he believes suffer from a poor
understanding of Botswana and IT in
the 21st Century. “They have told me
that my project is not viable,” he says.
“Nevertheless, I kept going because I
believe that my self-funded business
will attract investors one day. This is the
patience I am talking about.”
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www.inbusiness.co.bw | Issue 12 | 2017 35

Taste the Commitment!
Towards a Better Understanding of Endo
‘Taste the Commitment” was an afternoon of wine-tasting during which people
discussed endometriosis as an affliction that should not prevent women from
leading normal lives.
Held at Wagga Gardens near Glen Valley recently, the event focused on creating
awareness of the disease whose precise cause is yet to be established. Organised
by QUEVES EVENTS, ‘Taste the Commitment’ was also aimed at raising funds
for activities of the Botswana Endometriosis Foundation (BEF) as a support
group.
Among several dignitaries who graced the event was the Assistant Minister of Investment,
Trade and Industry, Honourable Biggie Butale, whose keynote address
elaborated on the theme of networking. “Events that contribute to fundraising
for the Botswana Endometriosis Foundation are an indication of the great vision
that this group of courageous women has for their objective of breaking the
silence on endometriosis,” he said.
For her part, the founder of Queves Events, Stacy Serebolo, thanked everyone in
attendance for their support of the initiative. “This event is important not only
for us but for women around the country who suffer, often in silence, from endometriosis,”
Serebolo said. “It is important because the success of this event will
get many people in Botswana talking and learning about endometriosis.”
Special gratitude was extended to corporate sponsors for making the event possible.
This exceptional mention went to AFA, State Bank of India, African Alliance,
Babereki Ka Lorato, BOSETU, BTU, Far East, Bash Career, BAMB and BOCRA.
*According to Wikipedia, endometriosis is a disease in which tissue that normally
grows inside the uterus (endometrium) grows outside it. This happens mainly
on ovaries, the fallopian tubes and tissues around the uterus and ovaries.
Symptoms include severe cramping on both sides of the pelvis - especially during
the menstrual period - and infertility. Worldwide the disease afflicts 6% to 10%
of women mainly in their 30s and 40s, but can begin in girls as early as 8 years
old.
Although the precise cause of this debilitating affliction is yet to be determined,
the Head of Obstetrics and Gynaecology at Princess Marina Hospital, Dr.
Ponatshego Gaolebale, believes that genetic predisposition plays a part. In an
interview with BOPA, Dr Gaolebale said this is because endometriosis occurs 6
to 8 times more in women whose first degree relatives had or have it (Daily News
22/04/15).
Men also came
36
www.inbusiness.co.bw | Issue 12 | 2017

Que Events Founder, Stacy Serebolo
Hon Biggie G. Butale
Master of Ceremonies, Tuduetso Tebape
Samantha Mongwe
Funds raised at the event went towards Botswana Endometriosis Foundation
www.inbusiness.co.bw | Issue 12 | 2017
37

FOOD
IT CAN’T BE WORSE THAN
SCRUMMY PHANE!
The erstwhile mainstay of the economy of many households in the North East
still commands the palate across a good share of the SADC population, writes
MBAKI TJIYAPO
As the adage goes, ‘One
man’s meat is another
man’s poison.’ While
this is hardly true in the
literalist sense because
except for superficial
appearances like colour and shape of
nose, the basic biology and genome of
humans is the same the world over. Yet
we do eat strange things relative to others
by geography and other factors, including
worms and bugs.
For instance, it comes as a surprise,
even astonishment, to most us in
landlocked Botswana to hear that
some people eat snails and mussels.
Cockroaches, which are omnipresent
as unwanted guests in much of the
world, are just unspeakable as a food to
us. But in Southeast Asia, the Thai are
fond of their fried crickets, worms and
grasshoppers, which makes them not so
completely strange because many among
us are not averse to this range of grub.
Just over 2 000 km to the north of
Thailand, the Chinese enjoy roasted bee
larvae, fried silkworm and dog meat.
Much the same goes for the high-tech
South Koreans and their Communist
neighbours in North Korea. Because
of this, several people around Paje
were unhappy when Snowy Mountains
finally overcame the irksome problem
of collapsible sand and completed the
Serowe-Orapa Road because with the
Koreans going home, their dog breeding
businesses would collapse overnight. As
for me, I have thrown up at the sight of
people munching on live earthworms and
scorpions on Survivor International.
But a few days later, my mother
would leave me hanging out to dry with
a simple question: “How could you be
surprised by people eating worms when
you like your mashonja and nyeza?, she
reprimanded. In my defence, I brought
forth the nutritional value of mashonja
and the various ways in which the
worms may be cooked to suit any meal.
In addition to mashonja, growing up we
ate lots and lots of bugs like the nyeza
or senyetse while some ate ntlhwa and
dikokobele. Only decades ago, BaNgwato
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had a good palate for the monitor
lizard that they prefered to call kgwathe
apparently in an effort to distinguish
it from the self-same creature that is
otherwise known as gopane, the monitor
lizard that is notorious for its sharp sweep
of the tail and fabled for milking goats
while the animals are out grazing.
Mashonja are little worms that inhabit
the mophane tree whose leaves are the
source of sustenance for the worms.
Scientifically known as Gonimbiasia
belina, they are native to warmer parts
of southern Africa, including Botswana,
Zimbabwe, southern Mozambique and
South Africa’s Limpopo province. In
Botswana, the Bakalanga top the list of
people for whom the prestigious worm is
a delicacy that becomes an instant staple
when in season. Others are BaTswapong
and BaNgwato of the gopane fame.
In the southern parts of Botswana,
mashonja are an all-time delicacy
because of their relatively scarcity
in an area where they were once
completely unknown before transport
and communications facilitated ease
of travel across the country. Here the
worms go by the name of phane, straight
from the mophane tree from which it
is harvested, an undertaking that is not
for the fainthearted even in territory
where phane is prevalent. It is a manual
process that entails manipulation of the
contents of the belly of the cylindrical
body to squeeze them out the posterior
end with the right hand while holding
the squirming tube in the left hand.
Thankfully, sanitary gloves increasingly
being used in this process because there
is no avoiding the stuff smearing the
hands.
As a measure of the ever-growing
savour and delectability of the worms
in the south, a mugful that sold for
P5 only five years ago or so has shot
up to between P20 and P30 in Greater
Gaborone. Admittedly quite ugly to
behold and prickly to the touch because
of a treble row of thorny spikes along its
back, mashonja have been the mainstay
of the economy of countless households
across Botswana, especially in the North
East, Bobirwa and the eastern flank
of the Central District where many –
including the high mobility Millennium
Generation – have this worm to thank for
their education and prosperity.
The time was, not so long ago, when
families would harvest these worms and
barter them by the bucket for school
uniforms, household utensils and other
foodstuff. This practice still persists,
although to a lesser degree than, say, two
decades ago or so, because its benefits
are obvious. But like other types of food,
some people have allergic reactions to
phane whose symptoms include nausea,
swelling and lumps on the skin. Even so,
consummate consumers of these worms
can enjoy them dry and crispy as a snack
or cooked with vegetables in deep sauce
and spices.
Many restaurants in Botswana’s
towns and cities serve mashonja with
pap or bogobe, but phane can also be
enjoyed with pasta, macaroni or rice.
Some people will argue that those who
do not eat mashonja do not know what
they are missing because the worms
are scrumptious and rich nutriments,
including protein essential for building
muscles.
To those who shun mashonja, mussels,
prawns and snails and so following
without even a try or a good reason such
as allergy, I say: Agh shem lovie, you don’t
know what you are missing!
www.inbusiness.co.bw | Issue 12 | 2017 39

FOOD
A Tale of Two Trucks
A student tracks a truck for delectation and pocket-friendly meals while on the other side
of town office workers at the upmarket CBD are fond of the folksy ambience that simulates
their homes, writes TUDUETSO TEBAPE
Busy, busy, busy. Such is the way people’s lives are today.
While food is something no one can live without, some people
confess to hardly ever making the time to sit down for a
meal in the course of a busy day.
Should an opportunity come for that rare sit-down meal
during working hours, the eating is characterised by rushed
shovels into the mouth because there is little time to savour
the food, let alone have a meaningful conversation.
The world over, street food has always been the answer to a
need for quick and tasty meals on the go. This is how findings
of a 1986 UN Food and Agricultural Organisation’s (FAO)
regional workshop on street foods in Asia defined the term
‘street food:
“A wide range of ready-to-eat foods and beverages sold and
sometimes prepared in public places, notably streets. Street
foods and fast foods are low in cost compared with restaurant
meals and offer an attractive alternative to home-cooked food.”
FAO goes further to state that street foods often reflect traditional
local cultures and exist in an endless variety.
In Gaborone, street food culture has been dominated by the
ever-enterprising Mma Seapae who sets tables with pots, chaffing
dishes and ‘Tupperware’ at populated street corners to serve to
hungry passersby.
Over the years, however, as the micro industry of street food grew
and more and more people sought creative ways to combat unemployment,
a new phenomenon of Food Trucks began to enter
the scene, making for a livelier street food culture in and around
Botswana’s capital.
InBusiness recently went around Gabs to take a closer look and
sampled food at two such trucks.
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Food Truck 1
Location: CBD (in front of Masa Centre).
Food Type: Traditional, home-style meals.
Menu: Diphaphata, ox liver, potato chips.
We opted for breakfast at this food truck owned by a 23-year old
young woman named Baaitse Simon. She serves breakfast and
lunch from her truck which she acquired at the beginning of this
year.
How Baaitse came to own the truck is something of a fairytale.
She began as an employee at the food truck and made such a
positive impression on the owner that he found fit to give her
the truck. Afterall, he was engaged in other income-generating
activities.
Baaitse says she gets up at 4am to prepare to leave her home in
Taung at 5am. It is a lot of work in the hour that includes kneading
dough, chopping and cutting and doing everything else to ensure
freshly cooked meals.
Her meals include fresh potato chips, mogodu, beef stew, macaroni,
rice, phaleche, bogobe, dumplings, beef, chicken and various
salads. Baaitse says her meals are reflective of what Batswana
eat in their homes.
REVIEW:
I opted for the ox liver and a phaphata for breakfast at 10:00.
There was not much by way of alternatives because breakfast was
sold out by the time we arrived.
There had been mogodu and beef stew. I certainly would have
opted for the mogodu. Anyway, what we had was spiced lightly
and there was no excessive oil. inBusiness photographer, ‘Buddha,’
also had ox liver but with potato chips. He enjoyed the meal
a great deal, referring to it as ‘the real McCoy ‘kasi’ meal’.
Baaitse earns extra marks for her extra effort to create a semblance
of domestic comfort by placing a few chairs under a
shade. But in this high age of marketing, we couldn’t help noticing
that her truck is not branded, especially that Baaitse’s spot is
in an upmarket location in front of Masa Centre, no less! But ever
the keen businesswoman, Baaitse listened and said she would
take our ‘tips’ into consideration.
www.inbusiness.co.bw | Issue 12 | 2017 41

Food Truck 2
Location: UB Open Space
Food Type: Deli Style Fast Food
Menu: Hot Chick Burger and Forking Burger
Service at Fork My Life
Husen Jadabanda
Hot Chick Burger
Amantle
This one has a name. That’s the first thing
that strikes us. A rather funky kind of
kinky name too: ‘Fork My Life,’ my food(t)!
And what in the Holy Land is a ‘Forking
Burger?’
Although usually at the Fairgrounds area
opposite Botswana Accountancy College
(BAC), on this particular day we meet
with Husen Jadabanda and his food truck
in the open field opposite the University
of Botswana’s main campus two or so
kilometres north.
Such is the convenience of food trucks
that being ‘inherently’ mobile, the
owners can place them anywhere in
pursuit of customers. What implications
this may have for licensing is food for
another day’s thought.
Fork My Life, the food truck, stands out
not just for the groovy name but for its
bright colours that invite passersby to
check it out. The items on the menu are
just as playfully named. Jada says he has
been cooking since he no longer cares
to remember because he grew up with a
passion for cooking.
REVIEW:
Very clearly, the customer is king at Fork
My Life where bar stools line up the sides
of the truck so that customers can watch
their food being prepared. Jada takes
marks by the pan even before we taste
his food.
The proprietor is immensely welcoming
too, preparing our meals in front of
us and serving us with a smile as he
gives a running commentary about
the importance of freshness in food,
especially street food!
Our Hot Chick Burger and Forking Burger,
which are chicken burger and beef
burger elsewhere, were prepared in such
an ambience on a hot iron grill. But after
what seems like a flash of lightning, our
meals are ready and plated. They come
with what is clearly Jada’s signature
lemonade, which is the latest addition to
the tasty treats on offer at Fork My Life.
But though packed with scrumptious
flavours, the servings are modest. Even
so Fork My Life is a fun truck of a place
to be.
While the inBusiness team is at the truck,
a law student named Amantle emerges
from the university and says she just can’t
get enough of the food at Fork My Life.
As a matter of fact, Amantle confesses
that she tracks the truck and follows it
wherever it may be. That is because in
addition to delectation, she adds, the
prices are consumer-friendly!
42 www.inbusiness.co.bw | Issue 12
| 2017

Ethiopian Airlines
1946-2016
After 70 years, we’re circling
the globe more than ever.
www.inbusiness.co.bw | Issue 12 | 2017 43

SHOWBIZ
44
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SINGS THE BLUES AND JAZZ APLENTY
… but the songstress finds that for all that zing and more, the disconcerting refrain
remains one of Botswana artistes being paid a measly pinch while foreigners take all the
shinplasters from shared projects, writes MBAKI TJIYAPO
For any artiste, to have been
identified by Gomolemo
Motswaledi is an achievement
on its own because the late
singer, voice mentor and
choirmaster was a maestro of no
small note.
But ever unpretentious, Nono
Siile speaks of this in a manner
that is a tad too modest for one who has
become an artiste of no small measure
herself. Growing up in the dusty streets
of what many regard as the ‘kasi’ side
of Broadhurst that is Tshimotharo, she
has been nothing short of phenomenal,
bursting onto the scene like a whirlwind.
With three albums in seven years, Nono
has buttressed the popular wisdom that
holds that talent and the ghetto complete
an equation for music, dance, sports,
sculpture, painting, the performing arts
and other art forms. Nono’s golden voice
has seen her release three albums under
her belt and one in collaboration with
Punah Gabasiane-Molale.
Upon completing her secondary
education at Elite in Gaborone in 1999,
Nono - believing herself not cut out for
academic work - told her parents that she
wanted to pursue a career in music. “I wish
I had studied music at secondary school
but it was not on offer,” she says. “My
dream was to follow in Punah Gabasiane’s
tracks and become the second Motswana
woman to record a jazz album.”
Because her mother, Sekopelo Siile,
was also musically-inclined, Nono met
with little disapproval. Infact, mother
gave daughter her blessing and supported
her all the way. Like many young women
artistes, the Church provided the very first
plank on which she stood as a timid tyro.
Perhaps unbeknownst to Nono then, her
future form as a diva began to take shape
when she started singing solo lines in the
UCCSA youth choir. She was a budding
beauty of 17 years, and it was not long
before the soprano joined her church’s
‘Bind Us Together’ to sing in praise of God
as part of the Sunday service.
A path was clearing before her because
the lilting lass was soon with ‘Love
Supreme,’ that junior a capela ensemble
in the stable of the remarkable KTM
that was always ready to sing the cosmic
notes of the senior choristers. After a
time, Nono was no longer a neophyte and
was ready for the plucking for the smoke
and mirrors that go with rock concerts.
Afterall, she had had a solid foundation
in the church that should act as a strong
moral bulwark against any morass.
Whereupon the master minstrel, the late
Gomolemo Motswaledi, introduced her
to Duncan Senyatso, a man who delighted
in helping ‘apprenticed musicians’ come
into their own. Nono became Senyatso’s
backup singer in 2000. Remembering
her days with Senyatso, she chuckles and
speaks about a show in Tsetsejwe, the
home village of her late mentor who spoke
several languages.
“We parked under a motlopi
tree and Senyatso, may his
soul rest in peace, said they
could write a song about
anything,” she says. “Suddenly
he was waxing lyrical and
poetic about the leaves of the
motlopi tree and their use to
cure women’s ailing wombs.”
Rich in the idiom and vocabulary of
Setswana, Senyatso also encouraged
to her to sing in Setswana the national
language. To-date Nono says Senyatso’s
melodious lead guitar still rings in her
head. But times were hard for musicians
then, witness how the Scania truck launch
was the first time she was paid P700 as a
backup vocalist.
www.inbusiness.co.bw | Issue 12 | 2017 45

A show at the Railway Club in
Mahalapye is another pointer to those
difficult times. With neither food nor
accommodation, Senyatso and the entire
band slept rough in a car and had to go
on stage without so much as freshening
up the next day. Nono quotes Senyatso
from that experience: “The lesson of
life,” she says he said, “is that if you want
something badly, you must fight without
let to get it.”
She recalls too that Senyatso told them
that the legendary Zimbabwean protest
musician, Oliver Mtukuzi, didn’t get
recognition until album No. 15! Nono
joined Botswana’s own legend Ndingo
Johwa’s IkaJazz in 2002 as a backup singer,
recording five albums with him.
She discloses a little known fact about
Senyatso, which is that the musician
was pan-Africanist who believed in
ancestral spirits and would never miss an
opportunity to partake in ‘mophaso’ in his
native Tsetsebjwe village.
This songstress comes across as rather
reserved and gives the impression of
being out of harmony with the extrovert
types whose adrenaline is fuelled by large
crowds. But the serenity is more like the
calm before a storm because this diva
becomes a creature of another order as
soon as she goes on stage, mic in hand.
She believes she has inherited these
qualities from Sekopelo, her mother, who
has been a presence on the local Twantsho
Borukuthi (crime prevention) committees
whose campaign platforms include choral
music with pointed lyrics. However, her
mother’s potential career as a songstress
was nipped in the bud by Nono’s loving
grandmother for fear that music was an
unrewarding profession fit only for fools
and layabouts.
Nevertheless, Nono was
determined early not to let
these obstacles hinder
her path to stardom.
Performing in Sweden
with her band of four on the occasion
of Botswana’s independence in 2016
is an outstanding illustration of her
indomitable spirit. So was her presence
on stage on a similar occasion in Japan in
2015. There they had an opportunity to go
to Tokyo’s Calabash Club where the likes
of Miriam Makeba, Michael Jackson and
Jonathan Butler had performed. Worldclass
saxophonist David Sanborn was on
stage on the particular night, an occasion
that has since fed an ambition for Nono to
perform there some day. The songbird had
been to Japan before, the first time having
been with Maxy also on the occasion of
Botswana’s independence in 2007.
Ironically, it can be said that Nono
actually faced a wider opposition than
her grandmother because inspite of
evidence to the contrary, people insisted
that Botswana’s music industry was at
best uncharted territory where aspirants
had only broken dreams to show for their
efforts and at worst such treacherous
terrain that men and women emerged
as weather-beaten survivors teetering on
a precarious precipice between certain
doom and receding redemption. She
concedes that the “Doomsday pessimists”
may have a point but notes that some
people go into music for the wrong
reasons, such as fame, hence she has
stayed the course.
Nono discovered midstream that
branding herself was not going to be
easy because she needed money for
photoshoots, travelling, make-up and
the accessories that go with the image
of ambition and success in the music
industry.
“Sponsorship and getting a
good manager were hard to
come by,” she recalls. “People
never want to associate with
a new product because of the
attendant risk of failure.”
And so it was no easy walk to freedom.
Even so, the tireless tyro reckons she has
made it because she now earns a living
by singing the blues and jazz aplenty,
which for her is at once a vocation and a
profession. This she does with the poise fit
for the chanteuse that she has become, yet
the shinplasters do not match the aplomb.
“Not at all,” Nono picks up the cue. “Jazz
is sure growing in Botswana but whenever
we perform alongside artists from other
countries, local artistes are stinted.
Promoters are still partial to artistes from
outside regardless of the fact that we have
come unto our own. Over time, a few
great singers and musicians get tired of
always being paid a pinch and drop off the
stage for good. We jeer at them for lacking
grit when we should be helping to change
the mindset of robbing us.”
Meanwhile, she identifies piracy
and royalties as other serious problem
areas for artistes in Botswana. In her
view, concert attendance may be good
throughout the country but album sales
are poor while payment of royalties by
COSBOTS is haphazard.
These opinions are quite widespread
across Botswana’s music industry, hence
this single mother of a 17-year old soccer
player often makes a call for a fluid
database to follow and show the airplay of
songs and music items on radio and TV.
Her views should carry weight because
in addition to international exposure and
other achievements, Nono was the Best
Jazz Album and Best Female Artist of the
Year in the 2015 BOMU Awards. Of her
three albums, her greatest hits are Borre,
Izaura, Nthekele Ring, Baa Mpateletsa
and Rrantshekgwane. Watch this space
for Nono’s fourth album before this year
is out!
In the meantime, you are invited to
join this beautiful songstress in her
countrywide war on drugs. The “I stand
up hashtag Drugs Must Fall” campaign
targets mainly students.
46
www.inbusiness.co.bw | Issue 12 | 2017

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www.inbusiness.co.bw | Issue 12 | 2017 47

SHOWBIZ
48
www.inbusiness.co.bw | Issue 12 | 2017

“RASP” MOIPOLAI:
From ‘Small is Beautiful’ to ‘Bigger is Better’
NATASHA SELATO tells the story of the deejay who taught social studies
and made the full circle to events management
The story of Morapedi Moipolia is
about never taking more than you
can chew. With his parents running
a lodge in Gaborone, the young man
grew up in a business environment
but went on to practise E. F.
Schumacher’s principles of starting
small as a surer way to growth.
Hence Audio Tech began as a small sound
leasing company that had only two speakers
to its name in 2004. Morapedi had identified a
gap in the sound and technical support aspect
of event management because most existing
companies had no equipment of their own.
However, having to hire equipment from
South Africa - which was the norm then – was
resulting in two undesirables: lost employment
opportunities and exorbitant charges on
clients.
“Local companies had resigned themselves
to the dependency syndrome,” Morapedi
remembers.
Today Audio Tech is an award winning outfit
whose track record is adorned by big calendar
events like the All Africa Games and Fashion
Without Borders. At its career fair for this
year, the Human Resource Development
Council could not miss the company for the
outstanding layout at stalls that it had designed.
Morapedi - a child of Gaborone’s aspirant
middle-class neighbourhood of Extension 2
where he grew up with eight siblings - is proud
to say he runs a 100% citizen-owned events
management company that is making its mark
in sound and stage. He will even go further and
say he develops native talent.
Of course, this is “Rasp” whose parents were
the proprietors of Boiketlo Lodge; the selfsame
deejay who used to mix and spin ‘em discs
in the late 1990s and early 2000s. He always
aimed to one day become a businessman.
Accordingly, his early life is marked by
membership of Junior Achievement Botswana
(JAB), an organisation that encourages early
entrepreneurship and teaches young people
how to regard the education that they receive
today as a pathway to future success.
Moipolia was a student at Gaborone Senior
Secondary School then, having gone to Ben
Thema Primary School and Nanogang Junior
Secondary School before. As it turned out, he
planted a seed for the future by spending his
JAB days as a deejay, mainly at weddings. A
glimmer of the academic glowed in 1998 when
Moipolai spent his Tirerelo Sechaba stint as
teacher of social studies and a badminton
coach at a Molalatau school.
He then entered Botswana Accountancy
College in 1999 to study towards AAT. After a
few years of going in and out of jobs that young
people seem wonted to - including an early
attempt at owning a business (MODMAX) -
Moipololai was still pursuing a professional
accountancy course when he joined the staff of
Botswana Housing Corporation in 2005. That
is where the ‘bean counter’ gained his good
grounding in working with figures because he
only left the housing agency last year.
Now a full AAT Level 4 and dedicated to Audio
Tech, happy clients are spreading the word that
doing business with this outfit is worth every
thebe. In addition to sound and stage, the
company has expanded into lighting, plasma
television, video production, road shows,
photography, media management, catering
and corporate gifts, among others. The list of
happy clients includes Kgalagadi Breweries,
FNB, and Hotwire. “The most memorable
time was when we scooped two awards at the
HRDC career fair,” Moipolai says.
“But we often experience problems like
customers who don’t want us to work with
any of their competitors, the occasional
miscommunication with a client, new
technologies, and our own competition. We
try to plan ahead for those we can anticipate
and tackle those that arise unexpectedly. “
Attending annual media technology fairs in
South Africa, exploring the East in China and
Singapore, maintaining a website and having
a continuous presence on social networks are
important for Auto Tech to keep ahead of the
competition. Presently situated at Broadhurst
Industrial, the company is planning to relocate
to a bigger address at G-West Industrial for
more space this year.
Now a married man with two delightful
daughters, Moipolai has come full circle from
his days as a deejay to running a fully-fledged
events management business that employs
eight people. Such is the success story of
Auto Tech that having embraced the principle
of “Small is Beautiful” when it started out in
2004, Moiplolai is now becoming an advocate
of “Bigger is Better.” This is encapsulated in his
parting shot: “Go big or go home,” he says
www.inbusiness.co.bw | Issue 12 | 2017 49

FASHION
Monsieur Collections
This edition’s fashion section is proudly
sponsored by Monsieur Collections,
the high-end men’s fashion boutique
that recently opened a second store
at Game City in Gaborone. Make no
mistake, this is an upper crust affair for
men with a distinct taste for sartorial
elegance and matching accessories!
And then there is the added value of
the range at Monsieur Collections
being as timeless as it is inimitable.
50
www.inbusiness.co.bw | Issue 12 | 2017

www.inbusiness.co.bw | Issue 12 | 2017 51

BOOK REVIEW
Guide to living a purposeful life
BY TUDUETSO TEBAPE
TITLE: Intentional Living
PUBLISHER: Struik Publishers
PAGES: 271
PRICE: P198
BOOKSHOP: Exclusive Books (Riverwalk)
Our lives are like a story. There is often the good, the bad and
sometimes the ugly that we often want to hide. But overall, the
way that we live and what we do is our story. Honestly, I had never
thought about it in such simple terms until picking up Intentional
Living by John C. Maxwell.
Reading Intentional Living will show the reader the simple steps
they need to make to start living life with purpose and that one of
the simplest steps is changing one’s mindset! The great thing is
that as long as we are alive, we have the ability to shift our story to
who we want to be instead of who we might be right now. Instead
of living an unintentional life where things just sort of happen, we
can begin to live intentionally and choose to make a difference,
then it becomes like a ripple effect where we might just influence
someone else.
This is the first book I have read by John C. Maxwell, and if I had
to describe it in one word it would be “inspirational.” There is no
way to read this book and not be inspired to live the best life you
can live: A life without regret. A life where you can make a difference.
This book motivates and inspires but it also touches a place
deep in my heart as I read the stories the author shares. The writing
style is easy to understand, and I truly felt like I was listening
to Maxwell speak as I read the book. There were so many favourite
passages that I underlined, but the one line that stood out was: “If
you give with no expectation of return, you can make a difference
and live a life that matters.” Isn’t that what we all want?
This book is truly a timely one for today’s society; one that everyone
should read. I have found myself re-reading certain passages
because I truly want to live a life that matters. This book holds the
key to help unlock the potential that lives inside all of us
WHAT WE OFFER
• Sound & PA system
• Generators
• Stage & lighting hire
• Day light screen
• Photography
• Events and promotions
management
• DVD & Video production
• Visual equipment Hire
• Corporate gifts
• Product launches
• Road shows
• Executive Toilets
CONTACT US
Tel: (+267) 3928692
Fax: (+267) 3928169
Email: info@audiotech.co.bw
LOCATION:
Plot 5622, Unit 3,
Broadhurst Industrial,
Gaborone. Botswana
"creative events solutions"
www.audiotech.co.bw
52
www.inbusinessbw.com | Issue 11 | 2017

MUSIC REVIEW
MOKOLODI- CHARMA GAL
Let’s get one thing out of the way: Charma Gal has mastered the formula
of putting out music full of clever, playful and witty lyrics. She
carries this modus operandi in her new record ‘Mokolodi’ taken from
her upcoming album. Mokolodi is an unapologetic relationship revelation
where Charma croons about a particular gentleman in her
life who has taken over her heart, leaving her soaked to the last bone.
She is clearly at the prime of a love spell here. Cupid has this talented
songstress wearing a glow, running out of breath and completely swept
off her feet. She is drunk in love as she displays her prolific lyricism
singing, “Go na le guy e nngwe jaana, ngwana yole o ntwista intestine;
guy ele e arrestile pelo yame.” This is an electrifying piece of work that
shows Charma Gal is a creature of habit when it comes to her music.
She knows the kind of sound that appeals to her fans and she makes
sure she does not deviate from that. This record also proves she is a relevant
recording artist with a renewed confidence. It is a quick-witted
breath of fresh air that is sung with a melodic quality and a good-natured
style. With lyrics such as “Ngwana yole o mpeola cheesekop, batho
nna ke tshela ka oxygen,” how then can we not be in awe of such
stupendous creativity.
Favourite Lyric: “Dintshi o kare maoto a sebokolodi, cheka
moustache, selo se rwele hublot ngwana ke wena.”
ALPHA KING -TUCKSHOP MAS
Twenty year old Alpheus Odirile known to his legion
of fans as Alpha King, is well positioned to be a break
out star in the local hip hop circle. With the release
of his debut single TuckShop Mas, he has definitely
taken charge. Lyrically, the song finds the young talent
spitting rhymes about transcending from the boy
whose life was shaped up by selling in a tuck shop to
a prominent star he aspires to become with the help
of his mother. King spits out rhymes over an eclectic
and bulletproof production. The youngster has major
potential to tip into mainstream
Favourite Lyric: “Started in a tuckshop, I’ll be
pushing dreams with mama’s help, alright.”
SASA KLAAS
Sasa Klaas’s talent in the hip hop panorama
is absolutely pristine. She effortlessly
proves this in her latest offering
titled “24” that comes against the backdrop
of a blistering and well produced
beat from “Bangu.” Her latest work is a
punchline-oriented record that can best
be described as a triumphant masterpiece
heavily charged with declarations
of superiority, victory laps and strong
jabs aimed at hip hop counterpart and
ex-boyfriend Ozi F Teddy. This record
also finds Klaas as an unfiltered rapper
spitting obliterating flows and boasting
about how she leaves other rap artists in
the rear view mirror. She vibrates with
outrage over verses that paint Teddy as
a “fame hungry whore” who should have
been a Kardashian. That is immediately
before she drops another crisply annihilating
flow rapping; “You wanna talk
about my family on the Internet, but I
was feeding your family before you had
a cent. The cheap loyalty tattoo you
got across your chest is about as misleading
as a chain around your neck.
Fake gold chains.” The best highlight of
“24” is much felt on the last section of
the song where there is an unexpected
shift in the style of the song. Here Klaas
‘teaches fellow rappers how to count to
24 in metaphors. Her lyrical athleticism
is clearly heightened as she hammers
the fact that she is the queen of the rap
game. In a nutshell, “24” is a mission
statement delivered in a thrilling and
edge-of-glory manner.
2
Favourite Lyric: “By 21, I was the only
thing on the station.”
3
www.inbusiness.co.bw | Issue 12 | 2017 53

MOTORING
Next Generation Scorpion:
THE ABARTH 595
•A derivative offers young drivers a chnce to debut at the wheel of a real single-seater race car
BY ALPHA MOLATLHWE
54
www.inbusiness.co.bw | Issue 12 | 2017

Fiat Chrysler Automobile's Abarth
range has been bolstered locally
with the arrival of the all new
Abarth 595 range.
The 595 joins the recently
launched Abarth 124 Spider to
offer discerning buyers of the
Scorpion brand a larger range of variants
and is available in three derivatives - 595, 595
Turismo and 595 Competizione. It comes in
two body styles, "Tin Top" or Cabriolet.
ENGINE
All Abarth 595 derivatives are powered by
Fiat's award-winning 1.4l T-Jet engine, each
with its own specific outputs and driving
through either manual or sequential robotised
automatic transmissions. The standard Abarth
595 engine produces 106 kW of power and
206 Nm of torque, the 595 Turismo engine 121
kW of power and 230 Nm of torque, while the
top-of-the-range 595 Competizione engine
produces 132 kW of power and 250 Nm of
torque.
A derivative of the Abarth T-Jet engine
also powers single-seater racing cars in the
ADAC Formula-4. The Abarth Championship
is powered and organised by the FIA to offer
young drivers the chance to debut at the wheel
of a real single-seater racing car and features
no fewer than 18 teams and 42 young drivers,
one of whom is Mick Schumacher, son of the
Ferrari world champion Michael.
To ensure the Abarth 595 is not only "go, and
no show," the stylists at Abarth's Centro Stilo
design centre have created 15 different exterior
paint shades in solid, metallic and bi-colour
schemes as well as colour coded front and rear
bumper inserts, mirror covers and decal sets in
either white, black or red to further enhance
the Abarth's sporty styling.
The front and rear light clusters are also
new and are equipped as standard with polyelliptical
headlights and LED daytime running
lights on the entire range.
To further enhance the exterior of the
Abarth 595, eleven wheel choices are available
in 16" or 17" sizes. The standard 16" on the 595
can be substituted for any of the 17" versions
while the Turismo and Competizione feature
the 17" as standard.
In the interior, seven trim levels are available
and feature fabric or leather or leather/
Alcantara combinations. Black fabric is
standard on all models with leather optionally
available in black, red or natural on the 595
and 595 Turismo versions while the black
or natural leather/Alcantara is available
exclusively on the 595 Competizione.
All models feature air-conditioning, electric
windows and central locking with remote
function, 7" TFT digital display with advanced
sport mode and Uconnect 5" radio with handsfree
Bluetooth integration and steering wheel
controls.
Making an appearance for the first time in
the Abarth 595 Turismo and Competizione is
the powerful and sophisticated BeatsAudioTM
system with seven speakers. This optionally
available system has been developed in
collaboration with Beats by Dr. Dre, boasts
an impressive total output of 440 watts and
features a digital eight-channel amplifier, two
dome tweeters installed in the front pillars,
two 165 mm midwoofers in the front doors,
two 165 mm full-range speakers in the rear
side panels and one 200 mm subwoofer in
the middle of the boot in the spare wheel
compartment.
FEATURES
Standard safety features on all Abarth 595
models are five airbags, anti-lock brakes
with electronic brake distribution, electronic
stability control and Anti Slip Regulation
with Hill Holder function and a tyre pressure
monitoring system.
The New Abarth 595 is the only car in
its segment with a mechanical limitedslip
differential (called Abarth D.A.M.), an
exclusive performance feature derived directly
from the experience gained with the 695
Biposto. The Abarth mechanical limited-slip
differential exploits the full potential of the 595
Competizione and improves grip in extreme
conditions. The mechanical limited-slip
differential ensures adequate torque transfer
between the front wheels when either has less
grip.
This ensures holding the line with even
greater precision to the benefit of sporty driving
efficiency. The Abarth mechanical limited-slip
differential is part of the new Performance
Pack - available only on the New Abarth 595
Competizione with manual transmission - that
includes 17" Supersport wheels, Sabelt leather/
Alcantara seats with carbon fibre shells and the
595 carved aluminium badge on the roof.
The Abarth 595 Competizione version has
been imported in limited numbers with
additional cars available by special order.
All models feature a three-year/100 000
km warranty and maintenance plan.
www.inbusiness.co.bw | Issue 12 | 2017 55

56
www.inbusiness.co.bw | Issue 12 | 2017

SPORTS
DIPSY IS NO DIPSOMANIAC
Far from being tipsy, Botswana’s best-known football export is
about to open a new chapter in the country’s sports world, write
DOUGLAS TSIAKO & MBAKISANO TJIYAPO
At present, circumstances
surrounding sports and
turning it professional in
Botswana cannot inspire
many parents to encourage
their children to take that
route. But here and there,
perhaps yielding to extraordinary passion
in the child and the unconditional love of
parents, some do.
One such family are the Selolwanes and
their son, the groundbreaking Diphetogo,
alias Dipsy, whose nimble feet took the lad to
the US at the youthful age of 22 in the Year
2000. Never mind his country’s celebrated
reputation as a stable democracy in the midst
of bloodthirsty white minority regimes, it was
unheard of for anyone to make a career out of
sports in the Republic of Botswana, football,
and especially football, included.
Today, although he admits to many
moments of doubt partly owing to naysayers
disguised as friends, Dipsy is thankful to God
that he remained resolute. The lad is made
of sterner stuff. The same stuff that saw his
grandfather, the famous Blackie Selolwane,
gather musicians into formidable ensembles
in 1940s and ’50s Francistown.
The most famous of these, Selolwane
Swingsters, did memorable gigs across
Bechuanaland and exported soulful sounds
from the so-called protectorate to concert
audiences in white-ruled Rhodesia and
apartheid South Africa. Adroit with the
saxophone and dexterous on the concertina,
the eclectic giant was also much present in
public affairs, forming the advance guard of
the independence movement in the radical
Bechuanaland Peoples Party of Philip Matante
whose battle cry was land reclamation.
At the same time, Old Selolwane
played fluid football for Bechuanaland 11,
dispossessing rivals in the middle of the
park for re-distribution to his assault squad
ahead. The range of his repertoire is affirmed
by how he also rose to become president of
the Bechuanaland Tennis Association at a
time when tennis was the elite racket of white
settlers.
Dipsy’s is the same material that has
enabled his uncle, the illustrious John Blackie
Selolwane, to straddle the world like a colossus
of the guitar, strumming across oceans and
continents with the likes of Spanish songstress
Joan Palomo of “Granada” fame and English
singer, actress and composer Petula Clark
whose April 1968 duet with Harry Belafonte,
“On the Palm of Glory,” aired to high ratings
and racial rantings because it was the first
time that a white woman had ever held a
black man’s arm on American television.
Perhaps Uncle John’s ‘flaw’ lies in flouting
the sporting and cultural boycott of apartheid
South Africa with Paul Simon’s “Graceland”
project of the late 1980s, but he is there in the
massive multi-cultural ‘kibbutz’ that survived
the controversy when Graceland won the
1987 Grammy Award for Album of the Year.
Here at home, Dipsy’s uncle had been with the
legendary Kalahari Band where he became
known for speaking without a verb being
To Page 57
Dipsy’s uncle John Selolwane has straddled the world like a colossus with his
mean guitar. With him is Dipsy’s mother “Sister Gert” who could never be
put down in the decibel stakes when GU was in the park.
www.inbusiness.co.bw | Issue 12 | 2017 57

From Page 57
uttered, preferring to lilt along his guitar sans
lyrics in the manner of George Benson. A
fluent muso also on the pennywhistle, Uncle
John has struggled with his sight from early
childhood, yet he has never allowed any
optical illusions to frustrate what is in sooth
a musical odyssey that is yet to be concluded.
Enter Dipsy’s mother, the irrepressible
“Go-Get-’Em-Gert,” who, undaunted by age,
enrolled with the University of Botswana
under the government’s mature entry
programme of the mid-1980s and more
than held her own against lads and lasses at
the apex of both their physical and mental
development. But for Sister Gertrude, it was
always at top flight football games that her
gutsy personality burst forth, urging the
fast-paced Zero Johnson and nimble-footed
David “Pro” Mohohlo, the deadly strike force
of 1970s Gaborone United, to pile on the goals
or egging on her fellow supporters to drown
out the opposition in the decibel stakes.
Or better still, encouraging light-footed
Wiseman Lesole to draw rival defenders to
the touchline for a closer view from the stands
before darting to the goalposts in unstoppable
zigs, zags and zigs again, all the while turning
his markers into a laughing stock in 1980s
GU when the team doubtless had a rich vein
of form. On his best day, Wise would dribble
as he drove, taunting and
teasing
a w h i l e
b e f o r e
cutting a complex course towards the
goalmouth until the fullback – now a fully
forlorn flop - attempted a half-hearted hack
at the sprightly legs of his tormentor before
giving up the unrewarding chase.
It has been said of Wiseman that he could
be as nimble as a cat on a hot tin roof in
midsummer Gabs, the high season of top
flight football in Botswana. On such a day,
the generosity of ‘Pitlas,’ that larger-than-life
bloke who played patron to Botswana’s best
known football side, would become as ample
as his girth. And take it from inBusiness,
the man who had been the third Mayor of
Gaborone (1969 – ’74), Wellie ‘Pitla-Pitla’
Seboni, was of no small dimensions.
And so it was that Dipsy should be this
pedigree that rests on a solid bedrock of art
and deep rootstock of sports. Yet, though his
forebears were men and women of formidable
fortitude, it cannot quite be said that this
young man benefited from a course charted
by anyone directly before him, in the family
or nation at large. Unlike South Africans, he
ventured into the United States of America
nearly 13 000km away without an illustrious
pioneer like Steve ‘Kalamazoo’ Mokone
having set the stage for him beforehand –
he ‘Kalamazoo’ having been the first foreign
professional in Dutch football who also
played for English, French, Italian, Australian,
Canadian and Spanish clubs, including the
celebrated Barcelona, from the mid-1950s.
Nor did Dipsy benefit from the likes of
another trailblazer, Kaizer Motaung, who -
after struggling with the weather and injury
- went on to become top scorer in the North
American Soccer League for netting 16 goals
in 15 matches for his Atlanta Chiefs in 1968.
He could not draw on the experience of Jomo
Sono at New York Cosmos in 1977 before
‘Burning Spear’ played alongside Motaung
and legendary Pele of Brazil at Atlanta Chiefs.
But Dipsy – born Diphetogo Selolwane on 27
January 1978 at Princess Marina Hospital in
Gaborone – was undaunted when he played
college football for Harris-Stowe State College
in the Year 2000 and St. Louis University in
2001 before signing his first football contract
with Vejil Ball Klub in Denmark in 2002.
It was in those foreign climes that the
dexterity of Uncle John’s fingers found
expression in Dipsy’s intelligent feet that
found no field too far or foreign to subdue.
Is it any wonder then that Dipsy should
today be the first Motswana to
professionalise sports? This is
how he views himself: “I am always desirous
of achieving goals. Once I set my mind on
something, I don’t let go until it is done.
The journey of my soccer career required
discipline and strength of character to stay
focused.”
Growing up in the then dusty
neighbourhood of Extension 2 that lies
adjacent to Gaborone’s Main Mall, street
football meant going home soiled, often
bruised and late for his daily errands. Today
his mother takes pleasure in saying how, at age
10, Dipsy set his eyes on one day becoming
the first and biggest footballer to ever come
out of Botswana. “She says speaking about it
meant I clearly understood my goals,” says
the son. “But it started even before then,”
the mother picks up the cue. “From when he
was just bigger than a toddler, Dipsy always
felt abandoned and cried when his friends
tired of kicking and chasing a ball. His older
brother, Callistus, had trouble keeping up
with his demands on the ball.”
The lastborn of three children, Dipsy made
a football playmate even of Dolly, his older
sister. Of course, at that stage the ball was
the soft plastic type that children called ‘le
dixie’ for what is known as ‘diski’ in township
lingo. Sister Gertrude says while other pupils
at Lesedi Primary School received awards
for best in this or that subject, it was always
“Best Footballer” for her son. She remembers
that the first time she saw Dipsy in “a real
match” was after “Bra Bizza,” a teacher, had
extended a special invitation to her because
the wunderkind would be in action in a game
against another primary school.
He is full of praise for his single mother
and the broader family “whose members I get
along with very well”. He recalls, for instance,
how his grandmother often baked scones for
him whenever he went into camp years later.
The family always stood by him even when
things did not go well. “I would not be where
I am today without my family,” Dipsy affirms.
“They encouraged me and
never once did they call me
crazy for aiming high and
dreaming big.”
58
BLACKIE SELOLWANE: A man of diverse
interests, Dipsy’s grandfather played midfield
for Bechuanaland 11, was mean with the tennis
raquet, dexterous on the saxophone and the
concertina and active in the independence
movement as led by the Bechuanaland Peoples
Party.
www.inbusiness.co.bw | Issue 12 | 2017

Now 39 but still fairly reserved inspite of
his ‘exploits’ and laudable achievements both
at home and in foreign climes, he speaks of
low points in his career when he often needed
“a heart double the size of a football” in order
to tackle the obstacles. Always a footballer,
much of his troubles have come from his
game of choice where there was pressure on
all sides - from the coach, teammates and fans
who always have high expectations of a player.
“Ambition, resilience, dedication and the
friends you keep will help you reach higher
levels because they are all gifted in different
ways and are thus able to support you.”
Dipsy - whose given name of Diphetogo
means change(s), began to harbour these
ambitions from the age of 10 – substantiating
his mother on this point. His first team
was Liverpool, taking its name from the
well-known English side, which was in the
Chappies Little League. At 15, he joined
another Chappies League team, Manchester,
its name also drawn from the English Premier
League. He was on the threshold to greater
things, joining Gaborone’s Nyangabgwe FC
before landing at Gaborone United in 1995.
He soon came across football sponsorship
on the Internet, prompting him to go to
the National Archives for material thus far
written about him for onward transmission to
the scholarship committee. That is how Dipsy
entered Harris-Stowe State College in what
had widely been expected to be a ‘cataclysmic’
year of 2000.
He was soon becoming quite peripatetic,
coming back to be with GU for two months,
then back in the US with Chicago Fire in
late 2002 where he stayed until he returned
to join Engen Santos in neighbouring South
Africa in 2005. His football career now on
a firm footing, Dipsy joined South Africa’s
Jomo Cosmos in 2008 for six months before
going to Ajax Cape Town and then triple
premiership champions Super Sport United
in fairly quick succession.
And although he made a good home at
Pretoria University in 2012 where he stayed
until his retirement in 2014, it was at Ajax
that he says he felt most at home because
there was a good mix of young and old in the
squad. “Being the older guy meant I had to
lead by example,” he says. With more than
50 caps for the Zebras, Dipsy is a veteran of
note who became the bedrock of the national
team in great part because of his international
exploits. “I was expected to do well,” he
confirms. “There was that kind of pressure on
me because I had to motivate for the entire
team.”
Dipsy was first fielded for his country’s
national team at the turn of the century to face
what was fast becoming Botswana’s nemesis,
South Africa’s Bafana Bafana, at the National
Stadium in Gaborone, scoring the sole Zebras
goal before the wild horses went down 2-1.
“The respectable margin was a statement that
we could grow bigger and play better,” he says
of the 1999 encounter.
Observers always puzzle over what
happened to Botswana football after the
Gleneagles Agreement on sporting contacts
with (apartheid) South Africa came into
force in 1977 to reinforce other international
instruments for the isolation of apartheid
South Africa as a polecat state. Prior to the
stinging sanctions, Botswana sides more
than held their own against the best of South
African clubs. Whatever it is that happened,
Botswana’s football decline to flaccid status
came under sharp relief when South Africa
joined the comity of nations after liberation
came to the former pariah state, routinely
losing at both club and national team level.
But a more serious ‘nemesis’ for footballers
can be injury. While living in former
US president Barrack Obama’s adopted
hometown of Chicago in 2002, Dipsy returned
to Gabs to organise an ‘All Kasi” Christmas
tournament at GSS Grounds with friends.
But as fate would have it, the buddy-buddy
tourney proved a personal disaster. He recalls:
“I played the game far from my employer and
broke my left ankle. Fortunately, my employer
was quite understanding and took care of my
rehab.”
Today Dipsy is at the threshold of an
entirely new chapter in his illustrious
career, albeit one shrouded in mystery and
reticence except to say it is about football
entrepreneurship in the form of a football
academy. “Some people think sports is a waste
of time,” says Dipsy, “but I believe we can
invest in football in terms of infrastructure,
programmes, personnel, time and money. We
can create wealth in an environment where
football is still a past time.”
Before we press him for details regarding
his next enterprise, inBusiness proposes a
toast to this titan who detested Botswana’s
reputation as minnows. Unlike Wiseman’s
ferocious velocity that often made men look
like dog food collected from a funeral, Dipsy’s
defining style had something of a dramatic
irony about it: an unrushed brilliance that
unexpectedly turned the most solid defence
into a lethargic movement sapped by lack
of conviction a measly nanosecond before
busting the net with a veritable cannon volley.
That is what Dipsy’s deliberation did for
early 21st Century GU and the country’s
top flight football. And although the glory is
the property mainly of the Zebras defence,
Dipsy and his cool were there when Botswana
achieved the unbeatable record of reaching
AFCON 2012 without a loss. Throughout
that unparalleled campaign, the equation was
made all the more deadly by the exceptional
go-getter role of Jerome Ramatlhakwane,
who was making his mark as the jewel of
Botswana’s football future.
But let no one be misled by the midfieldercum-striker’s
nickname. Dipsy is nowhere
near being a dipsomaniac, although he admits
to enjoying an occasional tipple or two. The
codename of Botswana’s best-known football
export is merely a play on his given name of
Diphetogo. Watch this space for changes that
he is about to bring to sports in Botswana,
especially football!
The Dipsy Re-run
We run “Dipsy Is No Dipsomaniac,” the inspiring
story of the talented footballer who has
hung his boots and is in the process of becoming
a businessman of notable innovation,
because there was a mistake that marred
reading flow in our last edition in which the
story first appeared.
TINT BOULEVARD
STOP
ORIENTED SERVICES
benmakhala@gmail.com
www.inbusiness.co.bw | Issue 12 | 2017 59

EVENTS
inBusiness List of BTO Events
BY MBAKI TJIYAPO
In an effort to diversify Botswana’s tourism product, the Botswana
Tourism Organisation (BTO) increasingly hosts a series of events every
year that are aimed at attracting a different type of tourism. Thanks to
the country’s abundant wildlife, especially in the north, Botswana has
traditionally attracted tourists keen on safari. However, for several years
now, BTO has been making an effort to appeal to a wider array of tourists
by broadening the variety of attractions.
Says the organisation’s Public Relations Manager, Keitumetse Setlang:
“We decided to have tourism activities throughout the country
throughout the year. We studied the local market and saw fit to it after
ascertaining that Batswana not only like but are into travelling to events.”
Below is Your InBusiness List of BTO Events to Look out for in 2017
Event: World Strongest Man
Date: May 21- 28
Intel: This is an international weightlifting right here on
Botswana soil.
Event: Khawa Dune Challenge & Cultural Festival
Date: May 25 - 27
Intel: The event features a variety of fun activities, among
them motorbike challenges, quad fun rides, motorbike fun
rides, sky dives, camel races, camel rides, as well as cultural
shows and exhibitions. Arts and crafts of the Kgalagadi are
also on sale.
Event: Toyota Kalahari 1000km Desert Race
Date: June
Intel: This internationally-acclaimed event is a collaboration
of BTO and the South African National Off Road Car Racing
Association (SANORA) that ‘kicks up a storm’ over the sand
dunes of the Kgalagadi Desert in one of Africa’s toughest
terrains.
Event: Race for the Rhinos
Date: June 29 - 30
Intel: In this prestigious air race that raises funds for rhino
conservation, BTO collaborates with Gaing-o Community
Trust and Matsieng Flying Club.
Event: Makgadikgadi Epic
Date: August 9 -12
Intel: In partnership with Nata Community Trust and Sky-
Dive Botswana, this is another high profile event that BTO
hosts across the salt lake and Nata Bird Sanctuary every year.
60
www.inbusiness.co.bw | Issue 12 | 2017

05 MAY
UPCOMING
EVENTS
SUNDAY MONDAY TUESDAY WEDNESDAY THURSDAY FRIDAY SATURDAY
30
1 2 3 4 5 6
7 8 9 10 11 12 13
14 15 16 17 18 19 20
21
World
22
World
23
World
24 25 Khawa 26 Khawa 27
Strongest Strongest Strongest
Dune Dune
Man
Man
Man
Challenge Challenge
World Strongest Man World Strongest Man World Strongest Man
World
28 29 30 31
Strongest
Man
1 2 3
4 5 6 7 8 9 10
www.inbusiness.co.bw | Issue 12 | 2017 61

JAZZ FESTIVAL
Featuring
KIRK WHALUM (USA)|JONATHAN BUTLER
TRINITY MPHO, AMANTLE BROWN, ELEMOTHO(NAMIBIA) LORRAINE LIONHEART,
PHILLIP MATE, JAZZ MAN, SINO’S DELUX
VENUE
Venue: Stanbic Bank Piazza | Date: Sat 26 August 2017 | Time: 3pm until Late
Ticket P500
(Normal)
Ticket P750
(Golden Circle)
VVIP P2500
(includes Free ticket
to Champagne Picnic)
CONTACTS
+267 3923381
+267 73156870
62
Tickets sold at Liqourama (Riverwalk, Molapo Crossing & Kgale Only), Webtickets
www.inbusiness.co.bw | Issue 12 | 2017

Visit Your Nearest Branch/ Sales
Branch
Head Office
Private Bag 0053 | Gaborone
Tel: 395 1341 | Fax: 395 2926
Serowe Branch
Private Bag Rs 1 | Serowe
Tel/Fax: 463 0291
Rasebolai
Moshupa Branch
P O Box 244 | Moshupa
Tel: 544 9232 | Fax: 544 9205
Pitsane Branch
P O Box 71 | Pitsane
Tel: 548 6205/ 540 7292
Fax: 540 7164
Gaborone Branch
Plot 14395 | New Lobatse Rd.
G/ West Industrial | Next to Cashbuild
Gaborone
Tel: 392 2826/ 316 2039
Fax: 318 2461
Selibe-Phikwe Branch
Private Bag 15 | Selibe-Phikwe
Tel: 261 0455
Fax: 261 1810
Pandamatenga Branch
P O Box 107 | Kasane
Tel: 623 2013 | Fax: 623 2204
Francistown Branch
(Dumela Industrial)
P O Box 649 | Francistown
Tel: 241 3886/ 241 9546
Fax: 241 3672
Kanye Branch
P O Box 594 | Kanye
Tel: 540 3316| Fax: 544 0644
Mahalapye Branch
P O Box 439
Tel: 471 0249 | Fax: 472 0351
Maun Branch
P O Box 383 | Maun
Tel: 686 0392 | Fax: 680 0978
Palapye Branch
P O Box 151 | Palapye
Tel: 492 0291 | Fax: 490 0291
Hukuntsi Branch
Tel: 651 0343
Molepolole Branch
Tel: 590 6050
Tutume Branch
Tel: 247 0005
Jwaneng Branch
Tel: 588 3311
Sales Office
Mochudi Sales Office Lobatse Sales Office Goodhope Sales Office Takatokwane Sales Office
Letlhakeng Sales Office Nata Sales Office Letlhakane Sales Office Rakops Sales Office
Bobonong Sales Office Masunga Sales Office Ghanzi Sales Office Gumare Sales Office
Shakawe Sales Office Sehitwa Sales Office Kasane Sales Office Machaneng Sales Office
Francistown Sales Office Tsabong Sales Office Middlepits Sales Office Werda Sales Office
(Next to BTCL)Tel:241 3870
Bokspits Sales Office Kang Sales Office
For more information
call 395 1341 or
email: Communications@bamb.co.bw
YOUR ONE STOP
AGRICULTURAL MARKET
OF CHOICE
www.bamb.co.bw
www.inbusiness.co.bw | Issue 12 | 2017 63

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