Botswana to legalise undocumented Zimbabweans - president

By Mpho Lakaje, GABORONE Botswana

Botswana’s new president has told the BBC that he wants undocumented Zimbabweans to be legalised by granting them temporary work and residence permits.

Duma Boko, who made history last week after his party won the election, said Batswana could also learn skills from Zimbabweans

"They do jobs that would otherwise not get done," Duma Boko told the BBC Africa Daily podcast before his historic inauguration on Friday.

Botswana hosts the world’s second-largest community of Zimbabweans fleeing their country’s economic woes - and they are often resented, with deportations taking place daily.

The decision is not likely to be popular in the diamond-rich southern African nation, but Boko, 54, who has just unseated the ruling party that was in power for 58 years, said it was part of his plans to revive the economy.

President Boko said it was a challenge when thousands of Zimbabweans entered Botswana through the long and porous border between the two countries.

"They come in and are undocumented. Then their access to amenities is limited, if it is available at all, and what they then do is they live outside the law and they commit crimes - and this brings resentment," he said.

"So what we need to do is to formalise, have a proper arrangement that recognises that people from Zimbabwe are already here."

It is unclear exactly how many Zimbabweans are in Botswana, but thousands have been coming back and forth since Zimbabwe's economy imploded because of hyperinflation two decades ago. Some have also sought political refuge.

Statistics that are available show that Zimbabweans account for 98% of what is termed "irregular migrants".

Responding to a parliamentary question earlier this year, a minister said that from 2021 to 2023, out of a total of 13,489 recorded, 13,189 were Zimbabwean nationals.

Every day, police stations around the country organise deportations of Zimbabweans arrested for not having papers or involvement in crimes.

They tend to work doing cheap labour often as domestic workers and farm workers.

"A lot of these workers from Zimbabwe perform tasks that the citizen finds unattractive... they do jobs that would otherwise not get done and so there's no conflict there," Boko said.

However, there was a backlash against the government late last year after it was proposed that identity cards be used instead of passports for those travelling between Botswana and Zimbabwe.

The overall sentiment was that the move would lead to the arrival of more Zimbabweans.

But President Boko told the BBC Africa Daily podcast that his initiative would also be an opportunity for his countrymen to learn basic skills, like welding and plumbing, from Zimbabweans.

"In any and every construction site in Botswana the majority of people with those skills are from Zimbabwe, so we need to do a twin programme of allowing them to come in and we utilise the skills that they have and in the process of utilising these skills we also engage in some sort of skills transfer," he said.

"We can’t stop people with skills from coming in when we don't have the skills ourselves - we need to develop these skills and it takes time, so in the interregnum we need to have them come in properly, come in legally and be rewarded appropriately for the skills that they bring."

Boko, a human rights lawyer who founded the Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC) party in 2012, is at pains to show he is a man of the people, encouraging colleagues around him to take selfies.

He says his intention is to break down barriers and "make sure everybody has easy access, not just access to come close, but also bring ideas and suggestions".

His main focus - and the reason behind his victory - is his promise to improve the economy.

He says amongst his first moves will be to to sign new deal with global diamond giant De Beers.

Boko believes the agreement has been in jeopardy because of how his predecessor handled negotiations over diamond sales.

With diamond revenues assured, investors would have confidence in Botswana, which would bring in money to the country, Boko told the BBC Africa Daily podcast.

This would aid his ambition to create jobs - 100,000 a year over the next five years.

"We are facing a crisis of unemployment - for a population that's 2.4 million when you have almost 30% of those people unemployed, it is a crisis. It’s a ticking time bomb," he said.

Twinned with his proposal of sharing skills brought in by Zimbabweans, the new president added that he wanted young people to engage in business "to become entrepreneurs, employ themselves and employ others".

"What they need from government is access to affordable finance and access to markets, and government should facilitate these," Boko said.

His inauguration will take place at the national stadium in the capital, Gaborone, on Friday - which has been declared a public holiday - and international dignitaries are expected to be in attendance.