Appointments of Parastatals' executive management cloaked in nepotism - Mayor

The Mayor of Gaborone Kagiso Thutlwe has called on government to appoint high impactful Chief Executive Officers and Board members into public enterprises. He made this call this week, saying government should immediately stop the state enterprises sales spree but rather look for competent individuals who could make them profitable.

Government is selling public enterprises in line with her Privatisation Policy of 2000 because she says they are not making money. The Privatisation Master-plan identifies almost all the state enterprises for some form of privatisation. But for the Mayor the issue is not so much ownership as it is management.

“We should interrogate why these enterprises had been dragged to the point of discredit. It is unfortunate that executive management of these respective enterprises is not made on merit but is politically aligned with episodes of corruption and nepotism,” he said.

The Mayor added, “We should appreciate the fact that public enterprises are a vehicle to better social welfare policies therefore government has the legitimate responsibility to protect them.”

There is also a growing fear that parastatals recycle Chief Executive Officers and Board of Directors, which is now becoming a worrying trend. Last week former Botswana Telecommunications Corporation Limited Board chairman, Leonard Makwinja was appointed Chief Executive Officer of Botswana Railways on a three-year contract, effective July 1st 2017.

His appointment was recently defended by Transport and Communications minister Kitso Mokaila. The Mayor added: “What this means is that it is not a problem for government to own BCL and BMC, appointing people like Mr. Tombale who have shown greatest incapacity to lead public enterprises is the problem.”

Dr. Akolang Tombale, a former permanent secretary has been board chairman of BCL and is currently chief executive of the Botswana Meat Commission, which is another target for privatisation. Dr. Tombale was the architect and Botswana’s lead negotiator when the country negotiated the new 25-year diamond deal with De Beers that culminated with the marketing, sales and sorting divisions relocating to Gaborone.