Funeral Programme of Former

President of the Republic of

Botswana

Sir Ketumile Quett Joni Masire

N.Y.B., G.C.M.G., M.P.

BORN : 23rd July 1925

DIED : 22nd June 2017
BURIED : 29th June 2017

In Kanye
 Funeral Programme
Sir Ketumile Quett Joni Masire

Programme Directors:
1. Professor Thapelo Otlogetswe
2. Mr. Mogomotsi Kaboeamodimo

AT HOME

Family Valedictory Service Masire Family Home

05:30 05.45 Opening devotions
05:45 06:00 Viewing of the body
06:00 06:10 Prayer
06:10 06:20 Draping of the casket & Placing of the casket on the
cottage and forming up of procession

Procession departs for the marquee

MARQUEE SERVICE MOTEBEJANA WARD

07:00 Musical item: KTM Choir

National Anthem: Combined choirs
Opening devotions
Acknowledgement of dignitaries:Mr. Mogomotsi Kaboeamodimo

Masire Family Representative: Mr. Basimanyana Masire

Mogwera/Saane Family Representative Kgosi Ronnie Saane
Friend: Mr. Daniel Kwelagobe
Senior Statesman: Former President Thabo Mbeki (South Africa)
Senior Statesman: President Robert Mugabe (Zimbabwe)
Leboko Dipako Sesienyana
Musical item
Grandchildren: Mr. Eno Mwamba
Children: Ms. Matshidiso Masire
Grandchildren tribute: musical item
Ms. Mmasekgoa Masire-Mwamba
 Funeral Programme

Musical item
Leboko Moroka Moreri
Kgosi Malope
The President of the Republic of Botswana,
His Excellency Lieutenant General Dr. Seretse Khama Ian Khama

Reading of the Obituary Ms. Doreen Ramogola-Masire

Peloyame Modisane
Musical item

Sermon

Musical item: Choir

Announcements: Programme Director

Movement of Designated Mourners to the Gravesite

AT THE GRAVESITE

President, Dignitaries and family are seated at the gravesite

Military Ceremony
Blessing of the grave
Laying of Flowers: Grandchildren
Vote of thanks: Mr. Bontlogile Masire
Benediction
In Loving Memory of
Sir Ketumile Masire
In Loving Memory of
Sir Ketumile Masire
 Obituary
THE LATE SIR KETUMILE MASIRE (23 July 1925 to 22 June 2017)
D uring his over six decades of distinguished
Public Service, the Former President Quett
Ketumile Joni Masire, NYB, G.C.M.G., was
a chief architect of Botswanas Democratic
Development.
As Vice President and Minister of Finance and
Development Planning, as well as President, Sir
Ketumile contributed immensely to Botswanas
emergence from being ranked as one of the
worlds ten least developed nations to middle
income status.
During the same period Botswana also made
enormous strides in the provision of education,
health and social welfare. Quett Ketumile Joni
Masire was born in Kanye on the 23 of July 1925
as the first child of Joni Masire and Gabaipone,
who was of the Kgopo family.
Like most of his male peers he spent much of
his early childhood as a herd boy. At the age of
thirteen he was able to attend Rachele Primary
School, where he displayed a remarkable
academic aptitude. As one of the first local
students to earn a Government bursary, he was
able to continue his studies in South Africa at Tiger
Kloof (Old Moeding) Secondary School in 1944.
In 1946, following the death of his parents, Quett
as the first born was confronted with the need
to provide for his siblings. This development
caused him to forfeit his opportunity to derided by some, but big yields silenced the
attend University on a further bursary. naysayers. In 1957 he became the first indigenous
Instead he acquired a teachers certificate. African in the Bechuanaland Protectorate to be
awarded a Master Farmers Certificate.
In 1950 Masire became the first teacher
as well as head-teacher of the new Kanye Throughout the 1950s Masire was regularly
Junior Secondary School (now Seepapitso appointed or elected to various Bangwaketse
Senior Secondary School). In the early years development committees.
he taught eight subjects-Setswana, English,
History, Philosophy and Hygiene, Geography, On the 2nd of January 1958 Masire was
Mathematics, General Science and Music. In an wedded to Gladys Olebile Mogwera. Their
interview he would later recall: marriage was subsequently blessed with
six children: three daughters, Gaone their
I wanted to teach. I wanted to communicate first born, Mmasekgoa and Matshidiso and
information to the people. So I worked as three sons, Mpho, Mmetla and Moabi.
a teacher for six years. I enjoyed teaching
everything because I was good at all save for
music, because I could not sing.

Under Masires initial guidance, the school grew

steadily in terms of both students and staff,
causing it to move to its present site.

During this period Masire was also active in wider

community affairs, serving as the Secretary
of the Bangwaketse Teachers Association and
Chairman of the Bangwaketse School Sports
Association.

Masires passion for teaching continued into

his later life, in 1967, when he was already Vice
President and Minister of Finance, he helped
found and taught night classes at the Capital
Continuing Classes.

While still working in education, Masire had

maintained his lifelong passion for agriculture,
often visiting the then Governments
experimental plots, as well as the then white
owned local commercial farms, to expose himself
to new ideas. At the end of 1955, having saved
enough money to buy his own tractor he left the
teaching Service to become a fulltime farmer.
He would later recall that he had substituted
one form of teaching for another:
I wanted to go and teach people innovative
methods of farming. People were surprised that
a person could leave a respectable profession
such as teaching to do something ordinary and
common as farming.
His modern methods of cultivation were initially
During the same year, Masire began to acquire
a national reputation as the Botswana editor
of the Naledi ya Batswana/African Echo
newspaper. It was in this role that he became
politically engaged and first met Seretse Khama.
In 1961 Masire was elected to both the reformed
African Council and the higher Legislative
Council, being the only commoner from the
southern Protectorate to be elected to the latter
body. Among Masires notable Legislative Council
contributions was his successful advocacy for the
formation of the Botswana Meat Commission as
a statutory corporation.
Late in 1961 Masire was approached by
Seretse Khama and others to play the leading
role in organising what would become the
BDP. Drawing on his many newspaper and
educational contacts, Masire quickly established
an organisational network that became the
basis for the partys landslide 81% of the vote in
the 1965 general election. He also established
and edited Therisanyo, a party
periodical that
appeared
regularly from
1963 to 1967.
President, Masire championed a series of
robust interventions to elevate Botswana out of
its then prevailing status as one of the worlds
least developed countries, which in 1966 had
an annual per-capita income of only about
US$ 60. His development programme included
channelling foreign aid, loans, and mining
revenues into the development of educational,
health, power, transport and communications
infrastructure, while encouraging small-scale
services and industries. Efforts were also
made towards promoting commercial
agriculture.

From the beginning the Important milestones

new political government championed by Masires
was to a great extent a Ministry between 1966 and
partnership between 1980 included the establishment
Seretses vision of the National Development Bank,
and charisma and Botswana Power Corporation and Botswana
Masires energy and Development Corporation; the introduction
organisational ability. of the Pula as a local currency in place of
the Rand, and the favourable renegotiation
As the nations first of Botswanas share of revenues from the
Minister of Finance Southern African Customs Union.
(later Finance and
Development In the early years of independence Masires
Planning) as dynamic approach was unpopular with
well as some conservative bureaucrats, while
Vice- others resented his pre-eminent
influence over national policy
planning. But, Seretse maintained
his faith in his deputy.

In 1969 Masire suffered a

setback when he lost his
Kanye Parliamentary
seat to Kgosi Bathoen II,
who had left bogosi to
lead the BNF. Thereafter,
Masire retained the office
of Vice-President as
specially elected Member
of Parliament until 1974
when he was elected in
the Gangwaketse West
constituency.

By the end of the

1970s the success of
Masires development
portfolio had gained
him increasing
international as well
as domestic respect
and political clout.
Masire succeeded to the Presidency in 1980
with the overwhelming support of his partys
Parliamentary caucus, presiding over the late Sir
Seretses unfinished term until 1984, when he
led his party to victory in his own right. By then
he had seen the country through severe drought
and an early 1980s slump in diamond sales.
Having previously played a leading role in the
formation of Debswana as a 50/50 partnership
between the Government of Botswana and De
Beers, as well as the formation of the Botswana
Diamond Valuing Company, in 1982 Masire
overcame objections to oversee the conversion
of a portion of Botswana diamond
stockpiles into a 15% stake in De
Beers itself.
Masires tenure was
thereafter characterized
by continued high rates
of economic growth and
social development,
marked by Botswanas
rise to middle income
status. Indeed, from
1966 to 1998 Botswana
enjoyed the highest annual
economic growth rate in the
world. The resulting rising
revenues allowed for further
investment in infrastructure and
public services, as well as human
resource development, with education and
health consistently taking the lions share of the
budget.
Sir Ketumiles legacy goes beyond our borders
as during his time as both Vice President and
President he also played a key role as one of the
leaders of the Frontline states in the liberation
of our region from colonialism and Apartheid.
In the early years of independence Masire had
been deputised by Khama to engage the exiled
leadership of the African National Congress
and other liberation movements to establish a
modus operandi for their discreet movement
through Botswana. In response to the ANCs
request to establish bases in the then newly
independent Botswana, Masire presented the
movement with an alternative that: If you can
come through in a way that we cannot see you,
then we will not have seen you.
Masire would later observe that it was thus
agreed that: Our official policy was that we
did not allow the liberation movements to use
Botswana as a springboard to launch military
attacks on neighbouring countries. If the ANC
managed to infiltrate arms and guerrillas
through Botswana, we would claim not to have
seen them pass through our country.
In 1980 Masire chaired the first meeting
held in Arusha to form the Southern African
Development Coordinating Conference (SADCC,
later SADC), which succeeded in drafting the
nascent organisations constitution.
After leaving office, Sir Ketumile divided
his time between his passion for
farming and frequent service
as both a domestic and global
statesman, often working
through his Sir Ketumile
Masire Foundation.
Internationally, he chaired
the Panel of Eminent
Persons that investigated
the 1994 Rwandan
genocide, was the facilitator
of the inter-Congolese
Dialogue and the SADC
mediator for Lesotho, and most
recently Mozambique. Up until
the time of his death he remained a
respected voice for peace and good governance
on the African continent and beyond.
Beyond his many contributions to his country
and region, Rre Rra Gaone will be remembered
for his character, his humility, wit and decency,
which personified the values of Botho. He
always remained accessible and engaged with
individuals from all walks of life. In this respect
while he has left us with a larger than life legacy,
he was very much part of the lives of all Batswana.
Lady Olebile Masire passed away in May 2013.
Sir Ketumile Masire is survived by four siblings,
six children, and twelve grandchildren.
May His Soul Rest in Eternal Peace.