A few months ago during the months of May and June, Sunday Standard started running what was to become a long series of articles in which we pointed out actions of possible corruption at Botswana Development Corporation.
In particular we raised key evidence of ethical impropriety surrounding the glass manufacturing plant in Palapye, where BDC, together with a Chinese company, Fengyue, are involved.
We quoted extensively from an audit paper produced by a respectable local firm of engineers which, among other things, hinted at the fact that BDC had overpaid some invoices.
For the record, BDC is a wholly-owned investment arm of the Government of Botswana.
And as such one does not have to dig deeper to understand the motives behind our stories.
Through our investigations we had stumbled on information that made us to reach a conclusion that a BDC executive was involved in a nearby plot where an oxygen plant was being developed, which, as it turned out, was financed through BDC money even as it was abundantly clear even from the auditing engineers that the oxygen plant was not a BDC project.
Perhaps it is worth repeating that as Sunday Standard we ran the stories because we strongly believed they were of public interest. We had nothing against people at BDC, many of whom, in fact, we have never met in our professional lives.
Our only concerns were that certain images were emerging at BDC, which almost invariably pointed to possible acts of corruption, involving public servants managing billions of pula on behalf of Government and the people of Botswana.
After a detailed investigation and perusal of many documents in our possession we reached a conclusion that there was prima facie evidence that warranted investigation. And we started publishing the articles.
In response to our articles, BDC Management (and we believe with the full authority of the Board) went for the jugular instead of assessing the merits of the issues raised.
BDC ran full page adverts in a number of newspapers literally questioning the integrity and professionalism of Sunday Standard editor as well as the credibility and integrity of the newspaper.
To paraphrase their response, BDC accused Sunday Standard of libel.
This newspaper, particularly the editor, was accused of running a story that is “not well balanced, devoid of substance, not transitional and logical in trying to justify that something is wrong at BDC”.
The BDC diatribe went on to say “all allegations and imbroglio surrounding issues of corruption are unsubstantiated, self-serving, false, malicious and to a large extent defamatory”.
Here, it is worth noting that a closer look at BDC rebuttal revealed a failure by the corporation to directly address the issues as raised by the Sunday Standard articles.
While from the beginning we never doubted the accuracy of our stories, it was the outrageous and disproportionate response from BDC that further buttressed our suspicions that the malaise was much deeper than we had uncovered.
Instead of addressing the issues of corporate governance as raised, the Corporation resorted to thinly veiled threats of litigation; an arrogance of the first order which, as it turned out, was to be elaborately repeated in two separate but related matters when the Corporation was recently dragged before the High Court of Botswana at Lobatse.
As a footnote to the editor, the BDC advised in their typical immodesty that “we kindly advise that in future you should seek our input or clarification before going to print about issues that concern BDC. All [your] articles were neither researched nor based on facts. BDC has got nothing to hide, but protect the image and interest of its partners and to deliver on its mandate as prescribed by Government towards economic diversification and citizen economic empowerment”.
This week, owing to a report of the forensic audit authorized by the BDC Board, the media in Botswana has been awash with articles that effectively vindicate the Sunday Standard ÔÇô from beginning to the end.
In fact, the audit goes further as to point to many possibilities of criminality by some very senior executives at BDC.
A suggestion has been made by the auditors that some of the people who only a few months ago accused Sunday Standard of all sorts of crimes should in fact be the ones passed to the Directorate on Corruption and Economic Crime for further investigations.
They are suspected of exactly the kind of crimes we raised to which they responded by questioning our integrity.
We call on DCEC to speed up the investigations of possible crimes at BDC.
Not for the first time we also call on the BDC Board to take their fiduciary responsibilities seriously.
There have been reports that some of the BDC Directors are heavily compromised because of the inherent conflict of interest as a result of their fulltime jobs that put them into direct competition with the BDC.
There are allegations that in the past this has led to BDC losing opportunities, not to mention its market share as a result of some directors using the privileged information to prop up their companies against BDC. That is reprehensible.
In here, we call on the Minister of Finance, on whose watch BDC falls, to once again look at the BDC Board of Directors to ascertain if all of them still serve the BDC interest.
Finally we call on the BDC Board to be big enough to apologise to Sunday Standard for the abuse we have suffered at the hands of BDC.
In the light of the fact that all our stories have been vindicated it is our humble view that the apology is in order.
In fact, as Sunday Standard, were ready and willing to tender an apology to BDC, to BDC Management and to the Board of Directors had results of the audit proved us wrong.