Reducing diamond dependence among new Botswana president's challenges

April 1st, 2018

Ian Khama, a former army general who’s led Botswana for the past decade, will step down on Sunday, leaving his deputy Mokgweetsi Masisi in charge of the world’s second-biggest diamond producer until next year’s elections, Bloomberg reported.

While Masisi, 55, will inherit one of Africa’s wealthiest and best-governed nations, he’ll still have his hands full reducing the economy’s dependence on diamonds, creating jobs for the almost one in five workers who are unemployed and wooing more foreign investment. Aside from gems the country has little other than tourism to generate foreign exchange. the Bloomberg report said.

“A safe pair of hands” is how economist Keith Jefferis, a former deputy central bank governor, describes Masisi, according to the Bloomberg report. 

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