Botswana Federation of Public Private & Parastatal Sector Unions (BOFEPUSU) Secretary General, Tobokani Rari, has called on government to set up a National Forum and disband the Presidential Task Force that handles Covid 19 matters.
When addressing members of the media this week at Arirang Hotel, Rari said that the public was yet to receive a ledger book of the full account of the success and challenges that bedeviled the State Of Public Emergency (SOPE) as an intended intervention measure from the onset.
He said that there is no known clear cut national response or projection plan of how government intends to deal with the pandemic as everything seems to run on an abrupt and ad hoc medium.
Rari said that the idea of dividing the country into zones for the sake of controlling the virus seems to have faded away because it was not accompanied by any corresponding interventions including ordinate rollout of vaccination and isolation centres to protect the broader population.
“SOPE is not a healthy way of running a democracy in a country like Botswana especially when it shows to erode civil liberties particularly workers, which is the right to bargain and to strike. We are speaking here of a disease which knows no decree nor state of emergency, but a global pandemic which requires first, faith in science and then the wisdom and response of as many players as is practicable.”
Rari said it would be ideal to set up a national forum as opposed to a Presidential Task Force, where stakeholders guided by scientists, would throw their weight to rally public support in dealing with the disease. “The forum can be called the National Covid-19 Response Forum, for a more transparent and comprehensive intervention.”