Appearing before the Public Accounts Committee of parliament, the head of the DCEC Tymon Katlholo says his organization has been investigating P600m worth of corruption deals in the last eight months. He also said corruption Botswana was growing. The following morning Katlholo was suspended by Office of the President. DCEC (Directorate on Corruption and economic Crime) is Botswana’s corruption busting agency.
We know that a substantial proportion of the P600 million referred to by Katlholo was siphoned from the multi-billion pula water and sewerage projects, where some executives of Water Utilities Corporation like some senior head honchos in the State Presidency have been having a great time at the honeypot. They were part of a cartel that Katlholo had his eyes trained on before his suspension. The hope among members of the cartel, and this is pretty much the thinking behind Katlholo’s suspension is that the story of the looting and potentially their court cases will die away. That is not how life works.
Botswana government is sustaining heavy credibility losses. Many are right to see Katlholo suspension as a cover-up. A few members of cabinet are also implicated. An elementary lifestyle audit reveals that as a collective today’s cabinet probably grew richest and quickest in Botswana’s history. This should concern members of the public. But the person to be most concerned has to be the State President. Many people are beginning to question if Mokgweetsi Masisi is really in charge. Or is there a puppet on a string? Time will tell. Botswana is not alone.
A few disruptions in the SADC region are demonstrating how fragile the region has become. One took place in Mozambique, another in South Africa also involving Namibia and the last is unfolding in Botswana as we speak. Governance across of SADC is headed for a new low. Not only has the region’s resilience been tested and found wanting, as a result of those events we have refreshed on governance and also on our efforts to fight corruption. Let’s start with Mozambique where a former defence minister now State President stands accused of stealing billions in public money – a corruption scandal that has effectively bankrupted Mozambique. The president has said he knows nothing. Nobody believes him.
As a result of that corruption, Botswana Defence Force is today in Mozambique to prop the government of that country because money that was supposed to go into defence was stolen, leaving the army there more like a guerrilla rag tag than a standing army of a modern country. Not only that, the scandal has resulted in a mighty fall out between president Filipe Nyusi and his predecessor Armando Guebuza. In South Africa, President Cyril Ramaphosa is being subjected all public scrutiny after money was stolen from his home but then moved mountains to keep the theft secret.
It has come as a shock. Incidentally, like Botswana, the south African Defence Force is also fighting in Mozambique to prop up the Nyusi regime. SADC was supposed to go through a phase of renewal and democratization following the end of liberation wars in South Africa, Namibia, Mozambique, Angola and before those Zimbabwe. But the leadership had other ideas. The age of hope as exemplified by former leaders Thabo Mbeki in South Africa and Festus Mogae in Botswana is now truly history. That was when honour was priceless. We now have leaders that lack conscience. They are not able to use the courage of their convictions to convince their followers on anything.
These are the leaders scavenging on what they can find for themselves. Thankfully the people are a world ahead of the leaders. The trouble is that SADC countries will not only regress but also become losers of the new age. The biggest surprise among this rogue gallery has to be Botswana – a long time embodiment of exceptionalism. In recent weeks the intelligence services here has been arresting people under the flimsiest of reasons. It is now clear that the DIS as it is called here is playing a political game, chiefly to distract away from their own failures to reform, but also to divert attention away from the president’s shortcomings.
What they are now doing is distraction and diversion tactics. In its arrests the DIS is adopting what might be called a dragnet strategy. Everything goes. Among those to fall victim recently are the Police Commissioner, DCEC Director General, and the DIS Deputy Director General. They join a long list that has included many of Masisi’s perceived enemies and opponents. Many others among them are just victims of a drive to be seen to be doing something. Nobody now feels safe in Botswana. Citizens and residents alike live in fear. The whole thing has degenerated into an endless Hollywood-like movie.
Yet the president has opted to hear no evil and see no evil. He has stopped listening to his electoral base and does not seem least concerned by all the ensuing meltdown. There is no self-questioning, no pausing and certainly no self-introspection. It now boils down to self-preservation. And it looks like it will get worse before it gets any better. Apparently all the arrests and ongoing victimisations are in fight of the deep state. That might be true – up to a point. But those fighting the deep state are simply not making headway because they are clumsy, to put is charitably. Masisi presidency has not been adept at crafting a message and staying on it.
Instead it has always been swinging from one end to the other, more like a pendulum. Exactly who is the president talking to outside of his closed circle of friends, kitchen cabinet, hangers-on and political technologists? Probably nobody! Back to the arrests! Fairness and sanity have been suspended in favour of achieving political ends. Everybody is playing for high stakes yet the inconsistencies are glaring. Remember Squealer in George Orwell’s Animal Farm?
Arrests seem to be made arbitrarily and on the hoof. Investigations if any only follow later. Clearly we have not learnt a lesson since the days of “Butterfly” – an intelligence operative who was wrongfully accused of stealing P100 billion. For now my biggest worry is not that president Masisi is abusing the DIS. Of course he is. My biggest worry is that anybody who succeeds him as president including from the current opposition will also abuse the DIS. In the meantime, Botswana has become a nation of two good men. They are president Mokgweetsi Masisi and Botswana’s defacto Prime Minister, Peter Magosi. Everybody else except these two men has become a borderline criminal. What a shame!
