The sheer size of the gorge that has made Botswana richer than almost all other African countries isn’t immediately obvious. The scale became clear only when looking to the bottom of the mine in Orapa, 300 meters further down: There, seemingly tiny vehicles rolled along, getting bigger as they sped up the path that wound its way out of the pit. They were loaded with hundreds of kilos of rock – a rock that held the key to enormous wealth.
«There will be another blast tomorrow. That’s always a wonderful day,» said an engineer who was explaining the dimensions of the mine to visitors on a tour. The mine is almost two kilometres wide and over one kilometre long. It is the largest diamond mine in the world. The gems that have made Botswana a model African state have been mined here since 1971.
When Botswana achieved independence in 1966, only 40 people in the country held university degrees. Roughly the same size as France, Botswana had three secondary schools and only a few kilometres of tarred road. It was desperately poor. Then they began to mine diamonds in Orapa.
Today, Botswana is the country with the highest per capita income in sub-Saharan Africa (excluding the island states of Seychelles and Mauritius). There are more than 300 secondary schools. The road from the capital Gaborone to the mining region around Orapa is paved with asphalt, with hardly a pothole in sight over 500 kilometres. It is widely viewed as one of the region’s least corrupt countries.
Thanks in part to turmoil in its diamond sector, it is also stepping into a new political era.
Almost 80% of Botswana’s export earnings depend on the stones:workers sorting rough diamonds in the capital city of Gaborone.
The deeper they blasted and dug in Botswana’s mines, the further the country’s development progressed. That has been the pattern since the country’s independence.
But this certainty has been shaken. The price of diamonds is falling, as is demand. In the important markets of China and the U.S., demand has virtually collapsed. Artificial diamonds grown in laboratories are becoming increasingly popular. In 2023, 12 million carats of diamonds were extracted from the mine in Orapa, the equivalent of two and a half tons. This year, it will only be half as much.
This means that Botswana’s state revenues are also collapsing. Almost 80% of the country’s export revenue comes from the diamond business. In July, the International Monetary Fund slashed Botswana’s growth forecast for 2024 from 3.6% to 1%.
The consequences of this collapse have sent shock waves through the country’s politics. After a hard-fought election campaign, voters went to the polls on Oct. 30.
Two days later, on Nov. 1, incumbent President Mokgweetsi Masisi conceded, ending a period of unbroken rule for his Botswana Democratic Party that stretched back to the country’s independence in 1966. Masisi congratulated his apparent successor, human rights lawyer of Duma Boko of the left-leaning Umbrella for Democratic Change coalition, saying, «We lost this election massively.»
While other issues also played a role in Masisi’s defeat, the government’s attempts to recover from the diamond downturn were apparently too little, too late.
● Promises of a new economy
The longer the president spoke, the louder the murmuring in the audience grew. No applause, no laughter. Mokgweetsi Masisi worked as a teacher before his political career, and that is how he was addressing an election rally on a tilled field in Lobatse, an hour south of the capital: like a lecturer announcing the curriculum for the next school year.
Masisi, who was campaigning ahead of the Oct. 30 elections, spoke for almost an hour about promoting industry and strengthening agriculture, about promises of «a new economy.» He attempted to show that the government still had a plan – even if the diamond industry failed to recover. When the president finished his speech, he wiped the sweat from his face with a cloth. Many in the audience had long since begun stretching their stiff limbs.
Source:
https://www.nzz.ch/english/botswana-faces-economic-troubles-as-diamonds-lose-luster-ld.1855165
