Sorry for the thread hijack but....
You have got to be kidding me right? You think that diamond mining is better than tourism?
There is only so many diamonds in the earth, when that dries up all you are left with is huge holes in the ground and a lot of people without work. Tourism is a sustainable product that employs a HUGE amount of people in Botswana.
As per the huge amount of people that are looking for work.. well I dont want to get dragged into this arguement again, but I will endulge you this one last time.
Just because there are citizens that have a licence, does not mean that they should automatically get a job. They need to be suitable in attitude, motivation, good with people, able to make good safe command decisions etc etc.
A large amount of local pilots are not willing to either travel to, or live in Maun. Some are not into flying for the job, but for the money, and it shows in their work ethics.
These companies have a business to run. Being made to fill the positions with pilots who do not want to be there is not fair on the company.
A new system is looking at being implemented on screening Botswana pilots before they get sent away to South Africa for their training. (Another huge portion of Aviation that Botswana pilots should be doing IN BOTS, but thats another arguement.) They will be interviewed first by companies by a board chaired by CAAB, the companies, and a government employee. This should help weed out the ones who are doing it for the wrong reason.
You can expect a small number of these guys to drop out, as with all CPL courses, due to multiple reasons so a need for Ex-pat pilots to fill the gaps will be needed.
Add to that unexpected departures of the current employees that wasn't planned.
Blanket banning of ex-pat pilots is only going to cause undue hardship to the operators and affect the tourism industry as a whole, possibly leading to job losses of local people in other sectors of the business.
Why only SADC nations? Why not the other nations of Africa? What makes the SADC countries so much better than them?
This short sightedness disgusts me. In Botswana there is only so many jobs that you can move onto after finishing in the GA department. Air Botswana will only take so many people and the BDF doesn't want anything to do with the civil pilots.
These guys are going to have to move onto different countries around the world if they wish to continue flying bigger and better aircraft.
Its a fact of aviation. Its a global market. You only need to look at the amount of expats that crew planes in south east asia, china, india, the middle east and most of europe.
A fact sheet. Lets look at the amount of people that are employed for the tourism sector.
The company for taking bookings from the travel agents.
Receptionist, The booking agents, cleaners, managers.
The lodge companies.
Receptionist, accountants, store workers, store managers, managers, drivers, cleaners, cooks, guides, lodge maintence, car maintence, waiters, bar staff.
The aviation company.
Operations manager, Chief pilot, Safety officer, Pilots, schedulers, ops room staff, cleaners, overnight security, porters, head porter
Misc operations.
CAAB for such large numbers of operators and aircraft. Air Traffic Controllers. Refuelers, Security, Aircraft Maintence, airport cleaners. Wildlife people. Park Maintence, animal control, vets.
Then you need to look at all the businesses that supply the lodges with food, equipment and materials, maintence of the bigger items such as washing machines.
Then all the businesses that make money from the tourists that pass through Maun. Restaurants, hotels etc etc.
Well you get the picture.
The mining companies employ far LESS people, a huge portion of those profits head overseas and only a small portion heads into government coffers and not the pockets of the local community. While the small portion of the profits that actually does reach the government coffers is not to be scoffed at, it does not reach the people that need it most.
Tourism provides far more opportunity for money to reach the people that need it than from mining operations.
Stop looking at the small picture and look at the real situation that is going on. Not what is being spun to you by people with their own agenders.