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Income Differentials and Unbalanced Planning—the Case of Botswana

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 November 2008

Dudley Jackson
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Extract

In the Third World the need to find solutions to the growing problem of unemployment is becoming increasingly urgent, as reflected in many recent economic development plans:

The current tempo of economic activity is insufficient to provide productive employment to all…A major objective of the Plan is to create more employment opportunities in the rural and urban sectors on an increasing scale.1

Type
Article
Information
The Journal of Modern African Studies , Volume 8 , Issue 4 , December 1970 , pp. 553 - 562
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1970

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References

Page 553 note 1 Government of India, Draft Fourth Five-Tear Plan, 1969–74 (Delhi, 1969), pp. 13 and 20.Google Scholar

Page 553 note 2 Government of Tanzania, Second Five-rear Plan for Economic and Social Development, 1969–1974 (Dar es Salaam, 1969), vol. 1, p. 2.Google Scholar

Page 553 note 3 A comprehensive survey of the broader issues involved in planning for greater employment is Livingstone's, Ian ‘Agriculture versus Industry in Economic Development’, in The Journal of Modern African Studies (Cambridge), vi, 3, 10 1968Google Scholar. Specific theoretical and practical issues are considered by Todaro, Michael in ‘A Model of Labour Migration and Urban Unemployment in Less Developed Countries’, in American Economic Review (Stanford), 03 1969Google Scholar, and by Knight, J. B. in ‘The Determination of Wages and Salaries in Uganda’ and‘Earnings, Employment, Education and Income Distribution in Uganda’, both in Bulletin of the Oxford University Institute of Economics and Statistics (Oxford), 08 1967 and 11 1968Google Scholar, and in Elliott, C. (ed.), The Constraints on Zambia's Economic Development (London, forthcoming).Google Scholar

Page 554 note 1 Halpern, Jack, South Africa's Hostages (London, 1965), p. 298.Google Scholar

Page 555 note 1 Data for this and the preceding paragraph are taken from the Republic of Botswana, Statistical Abstract, 1968 (Gaberones, 1968).Google ScholarPubMed

Page 555 note 2 The Development of the Bechuanaland Economy, Report of the Ministry of Overseas Development Economic Survey Mission (London, 1965), ch. 10.Google Scholar

Page 555 note 3 Republic of Botswana, Transitional Plan for Social and Economic Development (Gaberones, 1966), p. 7Google Scholar; and National Development Plan, 1968–1973 (Gaberones, 1968), p. 9.Google Scholar

Page 555 note 4 Ibid. para. 2.26.

Page 556 note 1 Source: calculated from the National Development Plan, 1968–1973, pp. 83 and 249–52. Rand 1 = £0.583.

Page 556 note 2 Gaberones, Francistown, and Lobatsi, containing 4 per cent of the population.

Page 556 note 3 Tuberculosis is very common in Botswana and the planners show little awareness of how this should affect the allocation of public health expenditures. King, Maurice in Medical Care in Developing Countries (London, 1966)Google Scholar argues the case for a system of rural health centres staffed by medical auxiliaries of intermediate training, especially for the treatment of T.B. This principle is now being applied in Tanzania; see their Second Five-rear Plan for Economic and Social Development, 1969–1974 (Dar es Salaam, 1969), vol. I, ch. XI.Google Scholar

Page 557 note 1 Sources: Republic of Botswana, National Accounts, 1965; Ministry of Development Planning; and author's survey, 1969.Google Scholar

Page 558 note 1 Source: author's survey, 1969.

Page 559 note 1 Source: author's survey, 1969.

Page 559 note 2 Sources: Republic of Botswana, Estimates, 1969, and author's survey, 1969.Google Scholar

Page 560 note 1 Quoted by Adu, A. L., The Civil Service in Commonwealth Africa (London, 1969), P. 55Google Scholar. The discrepancy between estimated personal emoluments and actual disbursements suggests that establishments could be reduced. The housing and water subsidy could be put to better use, e.g. by employing more industrial-class workers on labour-intensive public works. I would argue that recurrent expenditure on public-sector employment should be related to the internal, or regular, recurrent revenue of the country, and that external receipts should be regarded mainly as revenue for development expenditure on capital formation.

Page 560 note 2 The same Situation prevails in Lesotho, where, at independence in 1966, ‘the new Government inherited an unwieldy but firmly established “Whitehall duplicate” civil—service machine—often inappropriate to the needs of the country—which it finds very expensive to run. In addition, it is burdened with an intricate system of (recently increased) salary scales, which it cannot afford but which for political reasons it has to pay.’ Ward, Michael, ‘Economic Independence for Lesotho?’, in The Journal of Modern African Studies, v, 3, 10 1967.Google Scholar

Page 560 note 3 Turner, H. A., Wage Trends, Wage Policies, and Collective Bargaining: the problems for underdeveloped countries (Cambridge, 1965), p. 56.Google Scholar

Page 560 note 4 Franklin, N. N., ‘Minimum Wage Fixing and Economic Development’, in Wage Policy Issues in Economic Development (London, 1969), p. 349.Google Scholar

Page 560 note 5 Adu, op. cit. pp. 54–5.

Page 561 note 1 Republic of Botswana, National Assembly Paper No. 10 of 1966–67, ‘Statement on Government Policy in Relation to the Elimination of Racial Discrimination and the Furtherance of Localisation in Statutory Corporations and Private Enterprise’. See also Luke, T. C., Report on Localisation and Training (Gaberones, 1966)Google Scholar, para. 60: ‘As more and more local persons are appointed to the civil service, it is an unavoidable consequence that the level of salaries especially at the tops of the middle grades and the upper grades must be revised downwards to accord with the general level of the country's economy.’

Page 561 note 2 Such a move would not be without precedent. In October 1966 the Tanzanian Government effected cuts in the salaries of higher-paid civil servants and of Cabinet Ministers ranging between 10 and 20 per cent.

Page 562 note 1 Especially in Zambia: see Knight op. cit. for a highly relevant (and alarming) account of what such disruption can mean for an economy.