By Black Star News
Photos: YouTube Screenshots
The southern African country of Botswana has declared an emergency as the nation faces a shortage of medical supplies and equipment. The announcement was made in a televised state address Monday by President Duma Boko.
President Boko stated that the current prices of drugs is exacerbating already challenging economic conditions. “The current prices often are inflated five to 10 times. And under the current economic conditions, this scenario is not sustainable,” Boko said.
During his address, Boko announced an emergency health fund of $18.5 million. He said the Botswana military would administer a distribution drive to repair the country’s medical supply chain.
University of Botswana lecturer, Thabo Lucas Seleke, said the state procurement agency, Central Medical Stores, was a dysfunctional corrupt agency. “There have been yearly reports from the auditor general, which … flagged incomplete procurement records, missing contracts and recurrent delivery delays,” Seleke said.
To make matters worse, the diamond rich nation has also been suffering from a global downturn in the diamonds market, reportedly due to oversupply and poor demand. The nation is also struggling from aid cuts implemented by the Trump Administration.
Signal Risk analyst, Zoë McCathie, said, “The diamond downturn has been a lot more sustained than diamond mining companies and the state itself had initially predicted. As a result, the state was not as prepared for this as it could have been.”
Botswana depends on diamond sales for some 80 percent of its foreign exchange earnings. It is also being reported that Botswana is attempting to buy the famous diamond company De Beers.
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