Botswana’s fresh president has instructed the BBC that he desires undocumented Zimbabweans to be legalised through granting them brief paintings and place of abode allows.

“They do jobs that would otherwise not get done,” Duma Boko instructed the BBC Africa Day by day podcast earlier than his ancient origination on Friday.

Botswana hosts the sector’s second-largest people of Zimbabweans absconding their nation’s financial woes – and they’re steadily resented, with deportations taking playground day-to-day.

The verdict isn’t prone to be prevailing within the diamond-rich southern African crowd, however Boko, 54, who has simply unseated the ruling birthday party that was once in energy for 58 years, mentioned it was once a part of his plans to restore the economic system.

President Boko mentioned it was once a problem when 1000’s of Zimbabweans entered Botswana throughout the lengthy and porous border between the 2 nations.

“They come in and are undocumented. Then their access to amenities is limited, if it is available at all, and what they then do is they live outside the law and they commit crimes – and this brings resentment,” he mentioned.

“So what we need to do is to formalise, have a proper arrangement that recognises that people from Zimbabwe are already here.”

It’s dense precisely what number of Zimbabweans are in Botswana, however 1000’s were coming from side to side since Zimbabwe’s economic system imploded as a result of hyperinflation 20 years in the past. Some have additionally sought political shelter.

Statistics which are to be had display that Zimbabweans account for 98% of what’s termed “irregular migrants”.

Responding to a parliamentary query previous this generation, a minister mentioned that from 2021 to 2023, out of a complete of 13,489 recorded, 13,189 had been Zimbabwean nationals.

Each and every age, police stations across the nation organise deportations of Zimbabweans arrested for no longer having papers or involvement in crimes.

They have a tendency to paintings doing reasonable labour steadily as home employees and farm employees.

“A lot of these workers from Zimbabwe perform tasks that the citizen finds unattractive… they do jobs that would otherwise not get done and so there’s no conflict there,” Boko mentioned.

Then again, there was once a backlash towards the federal government past due extreme generation then it was once proposed that id playing cards be worn rather of passports for the ones travelling between Botswana and Zimbabwe.

The total sentiment was once that the travel would top to the arriving of extra Zimbabweans.

However President Boko instructed the BBC Africa Day by day podcast that his initiative would even be a chance for his countrymen to be informed unadorned abilities, like welding and plumbing, from Zimbabweans.

“In any and every construction site in Botswana the majority of people with those skills are from Zimbabwe, so we need to do a twin programme of allowing them to come in and we utilise the skills that they have and in the process of utilising these skills we also engage in some sort of skills transfer,” he mentioned.

“We can’t stop people with skills from coming in when we don’t have the skills ourselves – we need to develop these skills and it takes time, so in the interregnum we need to have them come in properly, come in legally and be rewarded appropriately for the skills that they bring.”

Boko, a human rights legal professional who based the Umbrella for Democratic Trade (UDC) birthday party in 2012, is at pains to turn he’s a person of the society, encouraging colleagues round him to pull selfies.

He says his aim is to fracture ill obstacles and “make sure everybody has easy access, not just access to come close, but also bring ideas and suggestions”.

His primary center of attention – and the rationale in the back of his victory – is his word to beef up the economic system.

He says among his first strikes might be to to signal fresh trade in with world diamond gigantic De Beers.

Boko believes the guarantee has been in jeopardy as a result of how his predecessor treated negotiations over diamond gross sales.

With diamond revenues confident, traders would believe in Botswana, which might herald cash to the rustic, Boko instructed the BBC Africa Day by day podcast.

This could help his ambition to assemble jobs – 100,000 a generation over the then 5 years.

“We are facing a crisis of unemployment – for a population that’s 2.4 million when you have almost 30% of those people unemployed, it is a crisis. It’s a ticking time bomb,” he mentioned.

Twinned along with his proposal of sharing abilities introduced in through Zimbabweans, the fresh president added that he sought after younger society to interact in trade “to become entrepreneurs, employ themselves and employ others”.

“What they need from government is access to affordable finance and access to markets, and government should facilitate these,” Boko mentioned.

His origination will pull playground on the nationwide stadium within the capital, Gaborone, on Friday – which has been declared a people bliss – and global dignitaries are anticipated to be in attendance.