Category: Sunday Standard

Botswana’s annual inflation rate declined sharply to 7.8 percent in September from 9.3 percent in August, offering some relief to consumers and businesses grappling with elevated operating costs.

Statistics Botswana’s Consumer Price Index report for September 2026 shows that inflation fell by 1.5 percentage points, although transport remained the biggest contributor to price increases across the economy.

The transport group contributed 4.0 percentage points to annual inflation, down from 5.1 percentage points in August. Miscellaneous goods and services followed with 1.1 percentage points, while housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels, alongside food and non-alcoholic beverages, each contributed 0.7 percentage points.

Despite the moderation in annual inflation, the overall cost of living continued to edge upwards. The national Consumer Price Index rose marginally by 0.1 percent, from 149.5 in August to 149.6 in September, indicating that prices remained broadly elevated.

Food prices provided some relief during the month, with the food and non-alcoholic beverages index declining by 0.6 percent. The decrease was largely driven by lower vegetable prices, which fell by 3.0 percent, followed by sugar and confectionery, down 1.0 percent, meat, down 0.9 percent, and bread and cereals, which declined by 0.7 percent.

However, housing-related expenses continued to rise. The housing, water, electricity, gas and other fuels index increased by 0.6 percent, supported by higher rental costs and dwelling maintenance expenses.

Core inflation also moderated, with the trimmed mean measure declining from 8.3 percent in August to 7.4 percent in September. Core inflation excluding administered prices fell to 5.3 percent from 5.9 percent.

The latest figures suggest easing inflationary pressure, although sustained price increases in essential services and transport-related expenses remain a concern for households and businesses.

Botswana is increasing foot-and-mouth disease (FMD) vaccinations to protect its cattle industry, with veterinary authorities warning that inadequate control efforts in neighbouring Zimbabwe and South Africa could undermine containment measures.

Director of Veterinary Services Dr Kobedi Segale said Botswana was extending vaccination to cattle in some areas where no infections had been reported, amid fears that livestock crossing borders could reintroduce the virus.

He said Botswana’s regional partners had agreed to coordinate disease-control efforts but expressed concern over what he described as limited implementation in neighbouring countries.

Segale singled out Zimbabwe, which he said was expected to have completed a second vaccination round but had yet to do so. Rising FMD cases in South Africa have also prompted Botswana to strengthen its response.

Authorities have resolved to vaccinate cattle every four to six weeks as the regional disease situation evolves.

Despite the concerns, Botswana has reported progress in containing outbreaks. Segale said no new cases had been recorded since September 12 in the containment zone covering Gamalate, Ga Ngwaketsi, Borolong, parts of Kgalagadi and parts of Moshupa.

In Kgatleng, veterinary officials have contained the disease in the area where it was initially detected, with no further cases reported there. Segale also said farmers were increasingly bringing their cattle forward for vaccination.

The government is planning further vaccination rounds. The final round in Borolong was scheduled for October 20, while a second vaccination for Kgatleng was due before the end of October. A third campaign was also planned for Kgatleng.

FMD outbreaks can disrupt cattle movement, slaughtering and marketing, while threatening access to export markets. For Botswana, where beef production supports rural livelihoods and export earnings, maintaining animal-health controls is critical.

The expanded campaign reflects concerns that national measures may be weakened by cross-border livestock movements. Its success will depend on completing planned vaccinations, continued surveillance and cooperation with neighbouring countries.

The minister of Environment and Tourism Wynter Mmolotsi has defended the country’s approach to wildlife conservation, arguing that protecting elephants must also deliver economic benefits to rural communities, following a backlash over the killing of elephants for the country’s 60th independence anniversary celebrations.

In a statement titled Diamond Jubilee: A Reflection on Botswana’s Conservation Story, Mmolotsi said the country’s conservation record must be measured not only by wildlife numbers but also by its ability to protect people living alongside animals.

The government authorised the killing of over twenty elephants to provide meat for independence celebrations on September 30, prompting criticism from conservationists and former president Ian Khama. Critics warned that the decision risked undermining Botswana’s international conservation reputation.

However, Mmolotsi said Botswana was home to more than 140,000 elephants, among the world’s largest populations, but acknowledged the mounting costs of human-wildlife conflict. ‘From 2021 to 2025, 48 people lost their lives and 79 were injured in encounters with wild animals,’ he said, adding that communities had suffered substantial crop and livestock losses and damage to homes, fences, boreholes and vital infrastructure.

‘For rural families, this issue is not just a conservation debate; it shapes their daily reality,’ Mmolotsi said.

The minister argued that destroying crops could trigger food shortages and lost income, while damage to a borehole could disrupt an entire community. He also noted that compensation could not replace a lost life, particularly when the deceased was a family’s sole breadwinner.

In 2025, hunting quotas generated over P67 million for local communities, financing water projects, education bursaries, food assistance, sanitation and job creation, according to the statement. ‘We support the view that communities should receive direct benefits from wildlife, as long as it’s lawful and sustainable,’ Mmolotsi said.

He also rejected suggestions that the government’s wildlife programmes amounted to an effort to eliminate elephants, arguing that Botswana sought to maintain healthy populations while protecting livelihoods and ecosystems. ‘Wildlife conservation must deliver meaningful benefits to the communities that live alongside wildlife,’ the minister’s position effectively underscores.

Whether regulated hunting can sustainably balance those competing interests remains contested, particularly after the independence cull reignited criticism of the government’s handling of its wildlife heritage. Mmolotsi said Botswana would continue protecting biodiversity while empowering rural residents, insisting that conservation must safeguard ‘human lives, livelihoods, and wildlife.’

President Duma Boko has elevated Botswana’s diplomatic ties with China by signing onto Beijing’s Global Security Initiative (GSI), but the move stops far short of compromising the nation’s frontline military alliance with the United States of America.

The agreement, finalized during President Duma Boko’s state visit to Beijing last week, establishes a ‘Comprehensive Strategic Cooperative Partnership’ focusing heavily on domestic law enforcement, cybersecurity, and cross-border crime

However, defense analysts emphasize that the pact leaves the Botswana Defence Force’s deep operational, intelligence, and high-tech combat integration with Washington completely intact.

By incorporating the GSI, Botswana has embraced a framework that positions itself as an alternative to Western-led alliances. According to official Global Security Initiative trext, the doctrine explicitly rejects Western methods of deterrence, stating that ‘war and sanctions are no fundamental solution to disputes; only dialogue and consultation are effective’.

The text outlines a vision aimed at rewriting global rules by rejecting what Beijing terms ‘hegemonism’. A core tenet of the GSI calls on signatory nations to ‘stay committed to respecting the sovereignty and territorial integrity of all countries,’ adding that ‘internal affairs brook no external interference, and their right to independently choose social systems and development paths must be upheld’. For Botswana, this language offers a diplomatic shield, reinforcing local political autonomy without the governance conditions often attached to Western partnerships.

However, the true scope of the deal signals an expansion of internal police coordination rather than a shift in Botswana’s frontline defense alignment. The GSI framework focuses its actionable security measures heavily on the domestic sphere, explicitly calling for ‘more exchanges and cooperation among university-level military and police academies’ to train foreign professionals. For Gaborone, this translates into Chinese assistance for municipal law enforcement, counter-fraud initiatives, and data security rather than combat operations.

While China cements its role as Botswana’s premier economic and infrastructure partner, the United States remains the nation’s unrivaled foreign military ally. Just months prior to the Beijing summit, the Botswana Defence Force (BDF) hosted U.S. Africa Command (AFRICOM) and the U.S. Space Force for Exercise Southern Accord 2026, focusing on high-tech combat readiness, intelligence sharing, and multi-domain space operations.

Washington also continues to directly supply the BDF with critical hardware, including strategic transport aircraft.

Security experts note that Botswana is intentionally maintaining its traditional policy of strategic non-alignment. By securing infrastructure grants and police-level cooperation from China under the umbrella of the GSI while preserving deep, frontline defense integration with the U.S., Gaborone is successfully balancing both global superpowers to maximize its national interests.

Former President Mokgweetsi Masisi probably saw the storm coming and forged a diamond-hard armor by opening a multi-billion-dollar trade lifeline to Dubai. President Duma Boko recognised its geopolitical power, and upgraded it into an institutionalized, capital flush weapon of economic defence.

In a rare display of political continuity, the two leaders have alchemized Botswana’s once-mocked diamond beneficiation into an unassailable geopolitical fortress.

What global skeptics and cynical sector analysts once derided as a slow-motion nationalistic failure has suddenly transformed into Botswana’s most lethal, world-class strategic fortress.

Today, as the tectonic plates of the global economy fracture, Botswana’s critics are being forced to swallow their words. What was once dismissed as a clunky, domestic political project has suddenly become a masterclass in national resilience.

The validation comes at a moment of extreme international peril. The highly synchronized global diamond highway connecting Botswana mines with India’s industrial engine is barreling straight into a geopolitical storm wall. The United States controls an absolute 55 percent of global finished diamond demand, making American luxury consumers the ultimate arbiter of value for gems mined in Botswana and sliced with laser precision in Surat, India.

But under the Trump administration’s aggressive, unpredictable reciprocal tariff regime, that vital pipeline is choking. Punitive U.S. tariffs on Indian jewelry have swung wildly between 10 and 50 percent, triggering systemic shockwaves across the luxury supply chain.

Worse still is the weaponized clock of the Lindsay Graham Act. This sweeping legislative framework threatens secondary U.S. tariffs of up to 100 percent against any nation continuing to purchase Russian crude oil. With India heavily reliant on Russian energy to fuel its massive economy, a looming presidential determination deadline could spark an all-out economic war, instantly crippling India’s broader industrial core.

For any ordinary resource-dependent nation, a sudden freeze in the factories of its primary buyer would dictate instant, catastrophic fiscal devastation. But Botswana did not listen to the skeptics. The country’s third President, Festus Mogae dug in his heels over economic beneficiation and pulled international diamond aggregation to Gaborone. Masisi and Boko built on Mogae’s achievements to create an armoured tactical shield. By aggressively shifting rough distribution channels toward Dubai, Masisi and Boko have built a parallel, capital-flush infrastructure that insulates the nation’s multi-billion-pula mineral wealth from Western regulatory gridlocks and superpower trade wars.

Rather than sitting back as helpless collateral damage in a Washington-New Delhi trade war, Botswana is primed to weaponise control over its own mineral supply chain to pivot at lightning speed, with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) emerging as a vital geopolitical shock absorber.

The Bank of Botswana’s (BoB) September 2026 External Statistics Bulletin exposes an industry aggressively rewiring itself on its terms to outrun this probable Washington-inflicted chaos. In a stunning realignment of regional trade, the UAE has exploded into Botswana’s second-largest export destination, commanding a massive 21.4 percent of outbound goods.

To understand how Botswana secured this financial sanctuary, one must look to the economic architecture laid down by former President Masisi. Long before the current trade war reached a fever pitch, Masisi quietly realized that relying solely on Western-intermediated distribution routes left Botswana dangerously exposed.

He launched an aggressive trade offensive toward the Gulf, famously leveraging events like Expo 2020 Dubai to pitch Botswana’s natural diamond story directly to Middle Eastern capital.

The results were meteoric. Under Masisi’s watch, exports to the UAE skyrocketed from $361 million to an astonishing $2.28 billion. By late 2023, official data from Statistics Botswana verified that the UAE had overtaken traditional hubs to become Botswana’s number one single foreign market, commanding over 32% of all outbound goods.

This massive redirection of wealth was accelerated by early cracks in traditional markets. Leading up to 2023, the geopolitical gridlock surrounding compliance issues and restrictions on Russian rough gems began to clog European pipelines. The Dubai corridor offered global dealers a seamless, parallel financial architecture, pulling the bulk of high-value rough transaction value away from both Antwerp and India.

Masisi effectively built an economic suit of armor for Botswana. By embedding Botswana’s rough supply directly into Dubai’s hyper-liquid bourses, he established a parallel, friction-free clearinghouse where precious stones could be bought, sold, and financed-insulated from Western regulatory overreach and banking gridlocks.

Yet, the core question haunting policymakers in Gaborone remained: Is Botswana witnessing the emergence of a genuine sovereign economic shield against geopolitical shocks, or is it simply migrating its exposure from one international marketplace to another?

The immediate danger lies in the increasingly transactional, scorched-earth relationship between global trade and foreign policy under the Trump presidency. By using reciprocal tariffs as a blunt instrument of economic pressure, Washington has forced global businesses to discard decades of established supply-chain logic, leaving India’s enormous manufacturing base uniquely exposed.

For the diamond trade, the implications are systemic. Surat is the physical engine room of the diamond universe, cutting and polishing 90 percent of the world’s rough diamonds. Its sprawling factories process stones from mining nations like Botswana, employing a massive network of up to one million artisans, traders, and exporters before finished jewelry ever reaches an international retail counter.

When tariffs arbitrarily raise the cost of Indian jewelry entering the American market, the economic consequences do not stop at the U.S. border. They travel backward down the pipeline at terrifying speed, moving thousands of miles from the luxury boutiques of New York straight to Debswana mining towns. American jewelry giants delay orders and demand steep price concessions to protect their margins against fluctuating tariffs. Indian manufacturers, unable to confidently predict the final price their polished products will command, reduce factory production. Indian diamantaires become highly reluctant to buy rough stones at standard prices, forcing a contraction in buying liquidity.

The result is a brutal chain reaction. A tariff imposed on a finished piece of jewelry at a U.S. port of entry immediately deflates the value a miner receives for a rough stone in Gaborone-even if that rough stone has never touched, and will never touch, American soil. For a nation whose public finances, national development plans, and foreign exchange earnings remain heavily exposed to diamonds, this is not a remote academic exercise. It is a clear and present threat to national solvency.

The threat becomes infinitely more complex where trade policy collides with raw energy security. India’s continued consumption of discounted Russian crude oil is a cold, calculated commercial necessity designed to insulate its massive economy from global energy inflation. However, Washington’s single-minded campaign to economically isolate Moscow has turned India’s energy policy into a primary flashpoint.

The Lindsay Graham Act represents the ultimate escalation of this friction, threatening 100 percent secondary tariffs and total exclusion from the U.S. financial system for any foreign entity continuing to facilitate Russian energy revenues. While the precise legal execution of these measures remains subject to intense diplomatic jockeying ahead of Washington’s impending determination deadline, the broader systemic danger is undeniable.

If the dispute over oil escalates into a full-scale trade war, the damage will automatically spill over into India’s manufacturing, export finance, and luxury sectors. Botswana would not need to be named in a single White House executive order or targeted by an American customs directive to feel the full, agonizing pinch. Its exposure is entirely baked into the interconnected supply chain.

When international banks freeze credit lines for Indian manufacturers, or when anxious traders withdraw liquidity from the market during periods of systemic uncertainty, Botswana’s national revenue drops.

Botswana is caught in a titanic contest between two economic superpowers, neither of which needs to look at a map of Africa to deal a devastating blow to Botswana’s economy.

This is precisely why Botswana’s celebrated beneficiation and aggregation strategy has ceased to be an idealistic socio-economic program and has become a hardcore geopolitical defense mechanism.

For decades, Botswana fought a quiet war against the traditional mining model of raw resource extraction. By leveraging its immense mineral wealth, the government successfully forced the structural relocation of De Beers’ multi-billion-pula international sorting, valuing, and aggregation sales from London straight to Gaborone.

At the time, Western observers mocked the move. They warned that forcing global diamond buyers to fly to southern Africa would compromise logistical networks and inject friction into a centuries-old market architecture.

Today, that domestic infrastructure operates as an economic fortress. Because Botswana wrestled control of its own supply chain away from European capitals, it has achieved an unprecedented level of supply immunity. Botswana is no longer just a mining pit; it is the physical clearinghouse for the world’s premier gem-quality stones. When the pipeline to India chokes due to tariffs or energy sanctions, Botswana is not forced to accept whatever fire-sale prices Western-intermediated buyers dictate. By holding the physical custody of international diamond aggregation on its own soil, the state retains the raw leverage required to deliberately pace the flow of rough diamonds onto the global market. Localized cutting and polishing factories-once dismissed as uncompetitive with Surat-now offer a protected, state-sanctioned sanctuary where high-value stones can be processed domestically. This allows Botswana to bypass unstable foreign midstream operations entirely when international gridlock intensifies.

If Mokgweetsi Masisi built the defensive armor, current President Advocate Duma Boko has aggressively weaponized it, shifting Botswana from passive trading to offensive macroeconomic statecraft

Boko realized that holding a dominant market share in Dubai was useless without binding institutional structures. In July 2026, Boko’s administration shattered the traditional midstream paradigm by engineering a landmark agreement between the Botswana Stock Exchange Group and the Dubai Multi Commodities Centre (DMCC) This formed Africa’s first multi-commodity ‘sister-hub’ trading corridor.

By anchoring the newly established Botswana Mercantile Exchange (BMX) directly into Dubai’s global ecosystem, Boko eliminated the need for intermediaries altogether. The Okavango Diamond Company (ODC) can now hold coordinated, dual-hosted tenders simultaneously in Gaborone and Dubai. If Washington-inflicted chaos chokes the Indian pipeline, Boko can seamlessly route Botswana’s mineral wealth through a state-sanctioned, institutionalized Gulf bypass corridor.

Furthermore, Boko has taken this relationship to an unprecedented geopolitical level by hunting for petrodollar acquisition capital. Facing a global diamond downturn, Boko has bypassed traditional Western banks, flying directly to the UAE and Oman to orchestrate a massive sovereign wealth consortium.

His objective is staggeringly ambitious: back Botswana with Middle Eastern sovereign liquidity to acquire a decisive, controlling stake in the 138-year-old diamond giant, De Beers. By enticing Gulf monarchs to become co-owners of Botswana’s mineral future, Boko has ensured that any future attempt by Washington to disrupt the diamond highway will directly clash with the financial balances of the UAE and Oman.

Ultimately, Botswana’s bold economic trajectory has delivered a definitive lesson to the global commodities market, that in an era of weaponized trade networks, raw resource ownership without structural supply-chain control is nothing but a trap.

Had Botswana remained a simple country of extraction, content to watch its raw stones fly off to London and Antwerp for valuation, it would currently be completely defenseless against the collateral damage of the Washington-New Delhi trade war.

Instead, through a rare display of political continuity, Botswana created an unassailable fortress. Former President Masisi saw the storm coming and forged the initial armor by opening up the multi-billion-dollar trade pipelines to Dubai. President Boko inherited that pipeline, recognized its raw geopolitical power, and upgraded it into an institutionalized, capital-flush weapon of economic defense.

As global economic empires clash, Botswana stands vindicated-not as a passive bystander caught in the crossfire, but as an active, armored player holding the master key to its own most valuable resource.

For decades, the global diamond industry followed a predictable, euro-centric script. A stone mined in Botswana would almost inevitably find its way onto a flight to Antwerp, Belgium. There, in the tightly guarded Diamond Quarter, European merchants would trade it, and Flemish artisans would cut it. It was a familiar African story where you export the raw wealth, import the expensive finished product.

But the economic currents of 2026 reveal that Botswana has successfully rewritten this narrative.

According to the Bank of Botswana’s (BoB) External Statistics Bulletin for September 2026, a quiet revolution has culminated in a dramatic statistical milestone, India has officially asserted itself as the leading destination for Botswana’s exports, commanding a staggering 32 percent of all outbound goods. Simultaneously, Botswana’s exports to India nearly doubled in a dizzying leap, soaring by 98.8 percent from P1.6 billion to P3.1 billion. Conversely, Belgium’s intake of Botswana’s mineral wealth plummeted by 41.8 percent, dropping to P1.4 billion.

For Botswana, this seismic shift is not just about changing the address on a shipping manifestation. It represents the maturation of its own domestic economic strategy.

For decades, Botswana has fought against the ‘resource curse’ by aggressively pursuing beneficiation-the deliberate policy of ensuring that a portion of the sorting, valuing, and processing of diamonds happens domestically, rather than exporting raw wealth to Western capitals.

The dramatic surge in trade with India is the crowning achievement of this policy. By cutting out the European middleman and dealing directly with India, Botswana secures a more resilient, high-volume partner for its state-owned Okavango Diamond Company (ODC). Furthermore, as Indian diamond giants establish cutting and polishing operations directly within Gaborone to stay close to the source, local Batswana youth are gaining access to high-tech manufacturing skills, transforming Gaborone from a mere mining administration center into a genuine regional financial and diamond hub.

The foundation for this transformation was laid by Botswana’s third president Festus Mogae over a decade ago when Botswana successfully forced the relocation of De Beers’ multi-billion-dollar sorting and international aggregation sales from London to Gaborone. It was a high-stakes gamble that fundamentally shifted the diamond world’s center of gravity.

Today, that infrastructure has turned Gaborone into a global nexus. Diamonds mined in Canada, Namibia, and South Africa are routinely flown in to Botswana to be mixed, matched, and categorized into commercial sales blends alongside local stones.

The Bank of Botswana’s 2026 data beautifully reflects this unique, multi-directional position. While Botswana exports billions in rough stones to India, it also imports 2.8 percent of its total merchandise from India. This figure is heavily composed of specific rough diamonds sent back to Gaborone for local aggregation and specialized processing. Botswana is no longer just a hole in the ground from which wealth is extracted; it is an active, vital processor of global luxury components.

By managing the aggregation process on African soil, Botswana has seized control of its supply chain. When global geopolitical shocks-such as the 2024-2026 G7 sanctions on Russian diamonds-created massive regulatory bottlenecks and multi-week customs delays in Antwerp, Botswana’s direct pipeline to India remained unhindered. Gaborone had the institutional autonomy to route its aggregated stones directly to where they could be processed most efficiently.

The natural partner for Botswana’s sovereign aspirations is Surat, a manufacturing powerhouse in the western Indian state of Gujarat. Surat has achieved a near-monopoly on the midstream diamond industry, cutting and polishing 90 percent of the world’s rough diamonds.

Historically, Antwerp retained the largest, most valuable diamonds because its high-wage master artisans possessed unrivaled expertise, while Surat handled lower-quality stones. However, Indian diamantaires heavily invested in computerized planning software, automated laser-cutting systems, and algorithmic mapping technology, completely erasing the skill gap. Surat achieved this technological parity while maintaining a cutting-and-polishing cost that remains roughly one-tenth of Antwerp’s.

As Antwerp’s workforce shrank to fewer than 1,000 artisans due to high overheads, Surat’s workforce swelled to nearly one million specialized workers. For Botswana’s beneficiation strategy to work, it required an industrial engine capable of processing immense volume with flawless precision. The Gaborone-Surat axis provided exactly that.

Crucially, the relationship is symbiotic. Indian manufacturing giants cannot survive without a steady, predictable supply of rough stones. By setting up factories directly in Gaborone to secure that supply, Indian firms are transferring critical operational knowledge and advanced technological skills to the Botswana local workforce.

While the glittering rise of the India axis highlights Botswana’s macro-economic strategy, the country’s broader trade sheets show an economy maturing across multiple sectors. The central bank’s report reveals that Botswana is successfully balancing its global diamond ambitions with targeted regional trade. South Africa remains Botswana’s undisputed primary partner for imports, supplying 47.5 percent of all incoming merchandise-predominantly food, beverages, and tobacco. However, Botswana’s exports to South Africa also grew by 18.1 percent to P1.7 billion, driven notably by machinery and electrical equipment. This indicates that Botswana’s domestic manufacturing capacity is diversifying far beyond minerals.

Exports to China climbed 18.3 percent to P1.5 billion, anchored heavily by copper. As the global transition toward electric vehicles and renewable infrastructure intensifies, Botswana is leveraging its copper reserves to establish a secondary economic pillar with the world’s leading industrial manufacturer.

Collectively, India, the UAE (21.3 percent), South Africa, China, and Belgium accounted for 79.2 percent of Botswana’s total merchandise exports. This concentration remains stable, but the internal distribution shows a clear migration of wealth away from Europe toward agile, developing economies.

The ultimate ambition of India’s diamond sector is encapsulated by the Surat Diamond Bourse (SDB), the world’s largest office complex, built to consolidate trading, sorting, and manufacturing under one roof. For policymakers in Gaborone, this ambition does not threaten local growth; it amplifies it.

The less dependent Botswana is on traditional, rigid European trading infrastructure, the more leverage it wields on the international stage. The fact that India now consumes nearly a third of Botswana’s total exports proves that a nation once vulnerable to the whims of foreign cartels is now a dominant player directing its own economic destiny.

The Bank of Botswana’s observation of a ‘geographical trade diversion’ away from Belgium may or may not be temporary in the eyes of statisticians. But on the ground in Gaborone, the reality is clear. By weaponizing beneficiation, transforming its capital into a global aggregation hub, and forging a direct alliance with the industrial might of India, Botswana has systematically dismantled the colonial blueprint of resource extraction. The Gaborone-Surat axis is the new blueprint for how a resource-rich African nation beats the resource curse.

An explosive power struggle at the Directorate of Intelligence and Security (DIS) ended with an extraordinary military intervention this week after outgoing Director General Brigadier Peter Magosi allegedly refused to vacate office following the end of his contract.

Elite Botswana Defence Force (BDF) commandos were deployed to secure the transition to incoming Acting Director General Aobakwe Monamo, turning what should have been a routine change of leadership into a high stakes confrontation over who controls the country’s powerful intelligence machinery.

Highly placed sources within the security cluster say the crisis erupted when Magosi rejected his termination notice, insisting that President Duma Boko as the appointing authority should deliver the instruction for him to leave office.

But with Boko away on an official state visit to China, attempts to reach the President reportedly came to nothing. Magosi is alleged to have repeatedly tried to contact him, only to hit a communication wall.

Efforts to reach Vice President Ndaba Gaolatlhe also allegedly failed, with the country’s second-in-command likewise out of the country and unavailable.

With the country’s top political leadership beyond immediate reach, the standoff threatened to turn into a full-blown institutional crisis at one of Botswana’s most sensitive security agencies.

Sources say Magosi then attempted a dramatic counter-move, unilaterally appointing his close ally and fellow Special Forces veteran Kopano Mochotli, as Acting Director General. The maneuver was swiftly crushed by the Office of the President. Permanent secretary to the President Matshediso Bokole reportedly rejected Mochotli’s appointment and made it clear that government recognised Monamo and not Magosi’s preferred successor, as the lawful head of the directorate. The intervention effectively shut down Magosi’s attempt to shape the succession and reinforced the executive’s authority over the leadership transition.

What followed was an extraordinary security arrangement that saw Monamo meet BDF Commander General Mpho Mophuting and Head of Military Intelligence Bernard Semausu. According to sources, the meeting was aimed at securing protection for the incoming chief amid the increasingly tense leadership standoff. The deployment of elite troops to safeguard the transition raises troubling questions about the level of mistrust within the intelligence establishment and whether the outgoing leadership’s resistance had become a threat to an orderly transfer of power.

Monamo, a civilian attorney rather than a career intelligence operative, is stepping into an agency where his authority could be tested by entrenched loyalties and competing power networks.

The decision to rely on active-duty BDF special forces, rather than the DIS’ own internal protection unit, is particularly striking. It suggests that those managing the transition may have considered an external security presence necessary to guarantee Monamo’s safety and to prevent internal factions from undermining the handover. Sources also point to Magosi’s final months in office, during which he reportedly pushed through internal restructuring and recruited individuals described as having links to the BDF into key DIS positions. Those developments have fueled concerns about the extent to which Magosi may have sought to consolidate influence over the DIS internal machinery before his departure. However, the precise nature of those appointments, the loyalties of the individuals involved and whether they played any role in the standoff remain matters requiring independent verification.

The decision to bring in military personnel rather than rely exclusively on DIS internal security arrangements has consequently raised the specter of a struggle over institutional control rather than a simple disagreement over an employment contract.

President Duma Boko’s decision to avoid publicly confronting Zimbabwe’s deepening political crisis during his April 2026 state visit to Harare has come under renewed scrutiny.

The criticism comes at a time when the two countries have also become increasingly linked by humanitarian cooperation.

Regional and South African political analyst, Ralph Mathekga has accused Boko and other regional leaders of looking away as President Emmerson Mnangagwa tightens his grip on power.

Mathekga, a political, social and economic researcher with Geopolitical Intelligence Services (GIS) places Boko alongside South African President Cyril Ramaphosa among regional leaders whose domestic pressures have influenced their approach to Zimbabwe.

According to Mathekga, Boko ‘shied away from the political crisis in Zimbabwe’ during his April visit. Instead, Mathekga notes, Boko focused on bilateral relations and solidarity between Botswana and Zimbabwe.

Mathekga’s assessment raised questions over the limits of Botswana’s new government’s diplomatic approach to Harare particularly given the country’s long-standing reputation for democratic stability and its historical willingness under former president Ian Khama. ‘Botswana under former President Ian Khama … often called out Zimbabwe for deviating from democratic practices,’ he argues.

Boko visited Zimbabwe from April 21 to 23 for the fifth session of the Zimbabwe-Botswana Bi-National Commission and the Zimbabwe International Trade Fair. He was hosted by Mnangagwa and co-chaired bilateral discussions covering political, economic, security and other areas of cooperation.

At the time, the visit was presented as an opportunity to deepen relations between the two neighbouring states. Mnangagwa said Zimbabwe and Botswana should leverage their natural resources to improve the lives of their citizens, while describing trade and investment relations as showing ‘steady and encouraging progress.’

But Mathekga argues that the diplomatic niceties came against the backdrop of an increasingly serious political crisis in Zimbabwe.

In his latest GIS analysis titled ‘Post-Mugabe Zimbabwe turns more autocratic,’ Mathekga argues that Mnangagwa has moved further away from democratic practices and that the response of regional leaders has been inadequate.

The analyst points to the 2026 constitutional amendment extending presidential and parliamentary terms from five to seven years, effectively keeping Mnangagwa in office until 2030 and postponing elections scheduled for 2028. He also notes that the amendment removes direct presidential elections, with future presidents to be chosen by parliament.

Mathekga describes the development as part of a broader political deterioration. He says the regional response has been characterised by silence.

‘When it comes to setting Zimbabwe on a democratic path and toward possible economic recovery, President Mnangagwa is not only moving the goalposts, he is tearing them down altogether,’ Mathekga argues.

His criticism places Botswana and South Africa within the same regional pattern. ‘Regional leaders battling their own domestic challenges will continue to look away as Zimbabwe falters further,’ he says.

Mathekga argues that Boko and Ramaphosa face their own pressures, including economic hardship, restless youth and problems within their respective public health systems. He argues that Mnangagwa is exploiting a fragmented international environment and the domestic difficulties confronting neighbouring governments.

‘He is well aware of the region’s troubled democracies, where political leaders are too preoccupied with their own domestic survival to weigh in on the crisis in Zimbabwe,’ Mathekga says. He notes that for Botswana, the relationship with Zimbabwe also has a practical dimension.

According to Mathekga, in October 2025, Zimbabwe reportedly assisted Botswana with an emergency consignment of antiretroviral medicine. The episode underlines the increasingly interdependent relationship between the two neighbours.

Meanwhile, in September this year, Zimbabwe is reported to have also donated 10 tonnes of food supplies to communities in drought-prone Bobirwa District. The food was delivered to Mophato Volunteers through ZimAid, Zimbabwe’s foreign assistance programme which operates with the country’s Civil Protection Unit and private-sector partners.

Mathekga’s interest in Botswana’s political landscape is not new. In August 2024, before Botswana’s historic elections, Mathekga warned that the then ruling Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) faced a serious challenge from the opposition. He observed at the time that the regional trend towards declining dominance by long-ruling liberation parties could reach Botswana. He wrote that the 2024 election ‘could bring an end’ to the BDP’s rule and that voters could weaken the party even if opposition parties remained fragmented.

That assessment, which formed part of an article carried by Sunday Standard, preceded the BDP’s historic loss of power after six decades and Boko’s rise to the presidency through the Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC).

The government did not respond to Sunday Standard’s emailed request for comment. Press Secretary to Office of the President, Emang Mutapati requested a signed media questionnaire, which was duly signed and returned to her. The Zimbabwean embassy in Gaborone also did not respond to Sunday Standard queries.

In August 2026, history was quietly, brilliantly rewritten in South Africa’s cultural capital. When the prestigious FNB Art Prize named Kelebogile Marope its 2026 winner, it marked a monumental watershed moment: Marope had become the first artist from Botswana to ever claim the acclaimed award.

The accolade – part of the Joburg Art Fair – was simply the latest milestone in a lifelong journey defined by quiet observation, relentless grit, raw personal grief, and the profound act of digging up forgotten histories through ordinary household objects.

‘There was an artist in me before I even knew the title of artist,’ Marope reflects. ‘Observation is one of the first tools in an artist’s bag. As a child, I observed and listened a lot. I was quiet, so I would just go off on my own. If not listening to my thoughts, I would be listening to the world around me.’

Her origins were rooted not in formal galleries, but in the solitude of a sensitive mind trying to make sense of her surroundings. Her father, a man possessed by an insatiable curiosity, laid the intellectual groundwork for her creative life. ‘My dad wasn’t necessarily an artist, but he had a research mind. He would get lost in reading,’ she recalls fondly. ‘I was not surprised that what he gave me when I was preparing to go to boarding school in Kimberly was a copy of Nelson Mandela’s Long Walk to Freedom.’

That spirit of inquiry shaped her interior life. ‘I was always trying to answer questions like: What are you seeing? What are you feeling… is there something specific? I answer those questions before I start working. They have stayed with me for a long time. There are specific incidents I remember because of these questions.’

Marope’s path to the visual art was far from straightforward; it was an accident born of illness, strict music lessons, and a chaotic, paint-splattered room.

At the girls’ boarding school she had been shipped to, she was a self-described introvert, seeking refuge in the library. Students were required to choose between music and visual art. She went with music. She possessed an instinctive, natural ear for the piano, but struggled immensely with reading sheet music under the stern gaze of a demanding teacher.

Then came the twist of fate.

‘There were three of us in the music class,’ Marope recalls. ‘One day the teacher got sick and said, ‘Go to the art class.’ The music room was a small space, and well-kept. The moment I walked into the art space, it was a mess-with lots of colour and a lot of students. It was a shock. Music worked with only two colours-black and white. But in the art room, there was so much colour. The tables were splattered. And everyone was laughing, having a great time.’

The art teacher handed her a piece of paper and a drawing utensil. By the end of the period, he stared at her work in disbelief.

‘Why are you not doing art?’ he demanded, before looking her in the eye. ‘You should consider doing art.’

It was a transformative crossroads. Driven by a sudden, consuming clarity, Marope lobbied the school authorities, speaking with counsellors and even the Principal to switch streams. Her request was granted for the start of her second year.

‘I wasn’t stressed at music, but art was different,’ she says. ‘I loved music, but I was struggling. When I got into the art world, I was lost in it-from its history to different forms of art styles over the ages, and the names that defined each art movement. The art teacher was romantic about art. I was gone; totally hooked. I didn’t need to be convinced that this was for me. I already knew I wanted to become an artist.’

Yet her trial was far from over. At the end of Grade 9, amidst systemic academic pressures, she failed art. Dismally. Entering Grade 10, she was dropped from the art curriculum entirely.

Drawn into a deep bout of teenage depression, she refused to let her passion wither. While other students completed their standard homework, Marope poured her soul into scrapbooks filled with sketches, clippings, and musings.

One day, a second teacher noticed her obsessive scraping and sketching. He asked her the exact same question as the first: ‘Why are you not doing art?’

When she explained that she had failed out, the faculty arranged a special, high-stakes makeup test. She was the only student in the room. ‘I wasn’t sleeping and I was feeling sick,’ she remembers. But when she turned in her work, the teacher delivered the news: ‘You passed. Do you want to do art?’

Because she was starting the curriculum late in Grade 11, school authorities – skeptical of a struggling Black student taking on an extra burden – doubted she could catch up. In those systems, only high-achieving ‘A-students’ were permitted to carry seven or eight subjects. By her own admission, she was not an A-student.

‘They were worried that I wouldn’t be able to catch up,’ Marope says, before dropping the irony: ‘It became the only subject that I ever got a prize for. By Grade 12, I got the prize again. I didn’t have to tell anybody that I wanted to become an artist. It just happened.’

That seventh subject proved to be her ultimate salvation. ‘I struggled in school, but when I found art, even the other subjects kind of became easier. I passed well to be admitted to Rhodes University because of the seven subjects. If I had done only six, I don’t think I would have gotten enough points.’

She still holds immense gratitude for those educators who saw past the transcript. ‘I always remember those two teachers. I talk a lot about them because of the power of the teacher. I probably would have found a long way here, but they made it shorter.’

Having conquered high school, Marope faced an immediate standoff at home. She took a gap year, throwing her household into tension. Her parents, terrified of the notorious financial instability facing artists, begged her to pursue a practical career like Social Work.

‘English and History were my strongest subjects. I was confused, but I was hearing them out,’ she says. ‘They asked, ‘How are you going to survive? You’re going to struggle.’ They took the liberty to apply for various programmes on my behalf, and I was admitted for different programmes, but I said no. There were arguments. We had fights. I was crying a lot, but crying over a passion to parents doesn’t mean anything.’

It was her father who ultimately relented, unable to bear her quiet heartbreak. ‘I can’t stand seeing you like this,’ he told her. He helped her assemble her portfolio and submit applications to top-tier South African universities: University of Cape Town, Wits, and Rhodes.

When Rhodes accepted her first, father and daughter boarded an Intercape bus bound for Port Elizabeth, taking a shuttle into the historic, imposing town of Grahamstown (now Makhanda).

‘You get to Grahamstown; there are British buildings everywhere and they are old. You see it as a little museum-a small town with 50 churches. It felt like a heavy space,’ Marope reflects. ‘It was a small town and divorced from other towns. During holidays, the town dies. But it was very rich in terms of the art. The Grahamstown Arts Festival was feverish with all art forms, with people from all over the world.’

The fine art programme at Rhodes was notoriously unyielding – a baptism by fire designed to break fragile egos.

‘There is no pampering in art schools,’ Marope emphasises. ‘That comes up even in critique sessions. They tear your work apart while they are swearing. There was a specific spot where people would always be found crying at.’

Did she ever end at that spot?

‘Of course,’ she laughs candidly.

The work was relentless. ‘At 5:00 am you would be going to the studio, and you’d realise that you are not alone; someone is practising on the piano in the music lab. It’s an ecosystem where you are feeding into each other without even realising it. I didn’t have a fallback. No matter how hard it was, I knew I had to climb the mountain.’

Part of that climb involved confronting uncomfortable socio-political dynamics within classical training. ‘You do life drawing, and the model is a naked woman. It was always a Black woman. You could tell that she was already a grandmother-obviously, she needed the money. Life drawing is the basis of art; it’s the best study ground for any art form. You observe posture, perspective, and the proportion of the body. The male models would be in underwear and the women would always be naked. We started to complain about it. It was hard for 18, 19, 20-year-olds to be comfortable in that space. I was certainly uncomfortable, but I said, ‘You have to learn,’ and I got comfortable after a while.’

The attrition was ruthless. A starting cohort of 50 students plummeted to barely 25 by their second year. ‘Some had failed, while others couldn’t stand the criticism from our teachers. A lot of people who left were better than me.’

By the end of their undergraduate studies, only two students in her class elected to pursue post-graduate degrees in fine art: Marope was one of them.

During her third year, Marope discovered her true artistic calling: conceptual installations and sculpture. ‘Sculpture is amateur engineering,’ she explains. ‘We learn about mass, how to deal with and work around structures. Of course, there are some things we don’t know, but it doesn’t mean we can’t engage with three-dimensional objects.’

However, as she completed her Master’s degree, her supervisors gave her a dire, prophetic warning: Be careful of post-school depression.

When she returned home to Botswana, the transition was jarring. She was entering a space far removed from the intense intellectual incubator of Rhodes. That same year, Nelson Mandela died, casting a heavy pall over the region.

‘It was the first time I was really home since I left as a teenager,’ she says. ‘I’m out of community, out of friends. There is no one to talk to about art. Nothing at home was familiar. I couldn’t even bring myself to cook; my dad cooked for me.’

Desperate to break out of her isolation, she began searching for local artistic communities. She had never been to the Thapong Visual Arts Centre, but a call for artists pulled her out of the shadows: a commission to create a massive monument from stockpiled ivory tusks – the iconic elephant sculpture, now standing proudly at Sir Seretse Khama International Airport.

‘It just so happened that one of my favourite animals is the elephant. One of the first stuffed animals that Dad bought for me was an elephant,’ she says.

She submitted her portfolio and CV, securing her place as the only female artist on the project team.

Working on the sculpture was a gruelling, deeply emotional experience that reconnected her with the core principles of conceptual art.

‘In school, they teach us about found objects. Working on the sculpture brought back what I learned. You see piles and piles and piles of tusks like you are at a graveyard. You see it inscribed on the tusk where it came from. You think of the inevitability of death. You are thinking through things in a deeper way.

‘Doing the elephant sculpture gave me life. Whenever I look at that elephant sculpture, I think to myself, ‘Don’t give up.’ It gave our airport status and a landmark. People are always taking pictures with it on the background. So, I say to myself, ‘Don’t give up; there is potential.”

After the success of the sculpture, Marope stumbled into teaching, spending three years as the sole art teacher at a school in Jeffreys Bay, South Africa. Standing in front of Grade 8 to 12 students, she found herself channelling the very teachers who had saved her years earlier.

Then, in April 2020, she returned to Botswana for what she thought would be a short holiday. Days later, the COVID-19 pandemic swept the globe, closing borders and locking down nations.

Marope was trapped in Botswana. Though she initially taught her South African students online, the school eventually let her go. Not only did she lose her job, but missed her students’ final exhibitions, and was even unable to attend their graduation dance. ‘It hurt deeply,’ she says quietly. ‘I didn’t realise it at the time, but the clock had started ticking.’

The following year brought a devastating blow: her beloved father, her fiercest champion and intellectual anchor, contracted COVID-19 and passed away.

Marope started looking closely at the domestic world her father had left behind. In her grief, she began examining the physical objects scattered around her family’s home-the irons, the tools, the furniture, the worn heirlooms.

It was out of this that her award-winning body of work was born: Archaeologies of Use.

‘Archaeologies of Use is the unearthing of a lived experience,’ Marope explains. ‘It’s all around the idea of the home in different ways. Found objects around the home tell you stories you didn’t know. Objects we live with almost become silent witnesses of our lives.’

She recounts a poignant revelation during her research: ‘My mom once said to me, ‘You know, I have never ironed for your father because he always ironed his own clothes.’ My grandfather apparently also ironed. Now, being invited into a silent narrative because I dug deep into my father’s hobby, I saw a glimpse of a story I wasn’t told about my own family. You can dig up your own story through objects around the home and asking questions about them. Household objects around us carry more than function-they tell stories. They are part of our oral history.’

Winning the 2026 FNB Art Prize is not merely a personal triumph for Marope; it is a momentous milestone for Botswana’s contemporary art scene, which she believes urgently needs infrastructure and institutional support.

‘In Botswana we still need to develop a full-fledged art ecosystem,’ she states. ‘It is very hard to survive without that ecosystem. We have people carrying out multiple responsibilities, and that questions our quality control. In a developed ecosystem, you have artists, curators, critics, and people whose job is just to frame your work and go home.’

Now, as the laureate, Marope is preparing for her grandest challenge yet: a solo exhibition at next year’s Johannesburg Art Fair. It will be her very first solo exhibition since the one she had at the end of her Master’s programme years ago.

‘You need a lot of resources to pull it off successfully,’ she acknowledges. ‘Yes, it’s called a solo exhibition, but there is a lot involved. You need a community of support.’

Currently in the research phase, Marope is ordering texts, taking meticulous field notes, and sketching initial concepts-all anchored in the domestic sphere. ‘The body of work will definitely be around household objects,’ she promises.

Botswana ranks as Africa’s third-highest-performing capitalist economy, scoring 72.7 out of 100 in the Global Capitalism Index, although weaknesses in business formation and capital markets point to persistent barriers to private-sector growth.

The index, released by the University of Virginia’s Democracy and Capitalism Lab, places Botswana 52nd globally, behind Mauritius at 73.9 and Seychelles at 73.4. Namibia ranks fourth in Africa with 69.7.

Based on 213 datasets, the index assesses eight features of market economies, including property rights, competition, banking, capital markets, labour-market openness, business formation and international trade.

Botswana’s strongest scores were in market competition, at 77.5, and market-supporting policies, at 73.5. Its weakest areas were new-business formation and growth, at 46.1, and capital-market sophistication, at 47.8. Banking depth and stability scored 53.1.

The findings mirror concerns raised in the World Bank’s July Botswana Economic Update, which describes a private sector dominated in key industries by a small number of established firms, often involving state participation. Relatively few new businesses enter the market and grow.

Businesses surveyed in 2023 cited limited financing, regulatory complexity, access to land, infrastructure and skills as constraints.

Labour-market pressures remain significant. Unemployment stood at 21 percent in 2024/25, up from 17.6 percent in 2015/16, while youth unemployment reached 28.9 percent. Employment grew by just 1.2 percent between late 2019 and early 2024, against 10.7 percent growth in the labour force.

Inequality also remains a structural concern. The World Bank cites a Gini coefficient of 53.3, based on 2015 data, placing Botswana among the world’s most unequal countries.