The Minister of Agriculture and Food Security Dr Edwin Dikoloti is running
Botswana Agricultural and Marketing Board (BAMB) without a full board including chairperson.
Functioning with five Board members, BAMB has still to replace three of the members whose contracts ended in April.
They are Chairperson, Dr Gloria Somolokae, Duke Masilo and Ogone Madisa-Kgwarae who served as ordinary members.
A source within BAMB said the position of Board member is usually a Political one by nature. The source said the Minister might not renew the
contract of some of the board members because they have not been helpful to the institution.
Dr Somolokae confirmed that her contract has come to an end.
“I was approached by the then Minister of Agriculture Patrick Ralotsia and
Cabinet to serve my national service at BAMB. It is not dependent on my
interest but it is the discretion of government to appoint competent
leaders to serve in some of the institutions as a way to improve leadership
and expertise at governance level, ’’ said Somolekae
The former Minister said when she arrived at BAMB with the current CEO;
BAMB was faced with a lot of challenges. It was bankrupt, failing to pay
farmers and diplomatically empty in its strategic grain reserve(SGR).
Somolokae fell short of calling the past BAMB management of being corrupt
but played her cards right and said her new team which is the current new
Board members and the management of BAMB played a very critical role in
restructuring BAMB.
She said when they took over from the past administration BAMB was running
at a loss.
“We came up with ideas that the strategic direction is well defined
finances are handled properly and objectives are well achieved and this was
achieved because had a good and visionary current CEO at BAMB, ’’said
Somolokae.
The former Board Chairperson said some of the issues which were achieved
are of farmers getting paid, improving the Strategic Grain Reserve on time
and tightening all loose points which was used to loot BAMB of millions of
pula countrywide under dubious circumstances.
“It’s painful to see some farmers taking more than three months without
payment and these gave us sleepless nights because it was like state
institution was collapsing small man/or farmers,” said Somolokae
Somolokae said she is aware of corruption which was in place at BAMB but
the current system has put all measures in place to improve the situation.
The former Board chairperson said she welcome the clean up campaign at BAMB.
She said leadership is a platform to do public good and welcome the
purpose of the ongoing investigation at BAMB that will lead to someone
being proven innocent or found guilty.
Dikoloti said the positions will soon be filled as consultation is still
ongoing.
