An audit by the Botswana National Sports Commission (BNSC) has unearthed flawed recruitment policy and procedures as well as excessive spending at the Botswana Football Association (BFA). The audit, which was carried out by BNSC into the financials and administrative of the local football mother body, has revealed that BFA’s flawed policies are likely to open opportunities for undeserving candidates to find work within the association.
The report revealed that the flaws in BFA’s recruitment process and procedures leaves the association open to unethical practises. According to the audit report, staff recruitment is not on merit and does not adhere to the principles of corporate governance. It has been established that people are hired without advertising and they also do not go through interviews.
“Best practice is that, all positions whether permanent or temporary are to be advertised to attract qualified and competent candidates and suitable candidates shortlisted and interviewed before anyone can be engaged,” the report reveals. “We requested a list of all employees employed in past year and we noted two employees were hired for the positions of Public Relations Officer and Technical Director and the positions were not advertised to the public and there is no evidence of any interviews conducted,” BNSC report noted.
The audit also established that, interviews for Project officer were conducted by the Personal Assistant to the CEO and a hired consultant. Four Technical Officers were interviewed by the Administration Manager and the same consultant who interviewed the Project Officer.
The report went further to state that there was no audit trail on how the consultant was engaged or even their background with regards to recruitment or expertise on Projects and Technical. Amongst other things the report reveals that through these flawed processes, the association risks missing out on finding suitable and capable candidates for the posts they seek to fill.
Still with the BNSC audit, it was found that the BFA, which is deep in debt, was spending excessively on staff overtime allowance. The report called for better monitoring of overtime expenses, noting that best practice dictates that ‘overtime is authorised prior to be taken with adequate justification and reasonable hours to avoid high cost that may be incurred.’
It revealed that from April 2017 to October 2017 the BFA paid P 405, 488, 90 as overtime allowance to its staff.
“We further established that, overtime is paid to almost every officer and employees often work more than 14hours of overtime in a week. “BFA continuous cash flow problems keep increasing and failure to pay taxes (PAYE) and suppliers but management of expenses such as overtime are not addressed or reduced,” read the report.
BNSC observed that there are likely to be financial losses due to unbudgeted overtime and excessive overtime leading to distraught employees. The BFA was also warned that this may also ‘end up with the BFA failing to comply with employment act.’
