The government’s ailing investment arm, the Botswana Development Corporation (BDC) is said to have notified its employees of a possible retrenchment. Hundreds of Botswana Development Corporations (BDC) employees said this week that they fear for their jobs after the management served them with letters informing them of impending retrenchment at the embattled parastatal.
“As we talk ,our future just hangs in balance we do not know whether we will still be employed or unemployed in a matter of months”, an employee of BDC told Sunday Standard. He further revealed that the retrenchment exercise is expected to start in June this year According to the employee, they have not been given adequate information nor the reasons for the decision but that they cannot help it but speculate that this has to do with the financial shambles that the abandoned Palapye glass project has left the corporation in. “All my colleagues fell that the failed glass project is the cause of this sudden development and nothing else and I think they are right. We are being sacrificed for some people’s faults. We have all read about some former employees’ accounts having been accredited with millions and we are now being made to pay the price for that”, said the employee. BDC’s Public Relations Manager Boitshwarelo Lebang did not rule out the possibility of retrenchment in an interview with this publication.
“BDC is in the process of reviewing its business model in order to enhance its performance and contribution to the country’s economic growth. A change in the Company’s business model will require a change in our product mix, processes, organizational structure, job content as well as a new set of skills. There is a due process that is still to be followed on re-modeling. As the process has not yet been finalised, I cannot confirm that there will be any job loses although it is a possibility”. On why there was a decision to review the structures of the corporation she said “the Board of Directors of the Corporation commissioned a Consultancy to review its business model in September 2013.
In this context, the scope of this assignment included: an assessment of the relevance and effectiveness of our mandate (which has not been revised in our 40 year history) as well implementing the business strategies, processes, and structures used to deliver on the mandate”. She denied that this has to do with the glass project losses saying “It is not linked to any single BDC project but to relevance and effectiveness of our mandate which we felt needed review after 40years.” she said.
Lebang was also not able to say how many employees are likely to retrenched saying. “This cannot be ascertained at this point as explained in 1 above. It is important to note that our intention is to build a new BDC operating under an appropriate and relevant mandate and business model.”
