Botswana Telecommunications Corporation Limited (BTCL) has been forced to abandon its flagship musical festival promotion after the company was caught between the infighting among promoters. Last year, BTCL’s subsidiary, beMobile hosted in Palapye a music festival that proved very popular. The festival was dubbed Ke Ya Rona beMobile Jazz Festival and was slated to be an annual event until the promoters started fighting among themselves.
One of the promoters insinuated that BTCL was taking sides with the other. The matter got so untidy that a BTCL senior executive was effectively accused of ethical impropriety. BTCL however protected its executives, daring the accusing promoter to approach the corruption busting Directorate on Corruption and Economic Crime (DCEC). In an interview this week, the BTCL Group communications Manager, Golekaye Motswaledi said his company had abandoned the project. He said attention will now be shifted to other deserving opportunities. “beMOBILE, last year embarked on a sponsorship initiative of an annual festival, termed “The beMOBILE Jazz festival”. The two promotion partners were identified through an unsolicited bid. The festival was held on the 31st March 2013 in Palapye. The festival was deemed a success.
To that end BTCL engaged the two promoters with a view to organise and manage the 2014 festival. But the two promoters or companies had fallen out which made engagement difficult. Subsequently, one of the promoters alleged that a BTCL senior executive was influencing their partner to disassociate from the partnership. BTCL advised them in a letter to approach the courts or the DCEC if they suspected impropriate [sic] on the part of BTCL or any of its representatives. Consequently, they wrote threatening to approach the courts should BTCL engage any other party to organize and manage the event.
Though the threat of litigation by the one promoter is without merit given that the contract was for one year only and they had no registered title over the concept , BTCL as a responsible corporate citizen would not want to be drawn into conflict between suppliers . We have since evaluated the merits of this sponsorship opportunity against other opportunities that continually present themselves. After due diligence and careful assessment we decided to forego the opportunity to sponsor it and have chosen to pursue other sponsorship opportunities,” said Molapisi. With BTCL now having withdrawn from the venture, it is not clear what will become of the once thriving now partnership between Urban Motion Communications Group and Streethorn Promotion.
What is however clear that is it is not the first time that BTCL finds itself entangled in a procurement fiasco. Last year the state owned phone company found itself on the news for bad reasons when it got entangled in a controversial P13 million branding, marketing and advertising contract that had been awarded to a South African company without clear local partners as outlined in the contract specs. The matter ended up in the hands of DCEC. BTCL was later forced to abandon the contract after it became clear that the corporation had violated its own terms of reference. This week, Botswana Guardian Newspaper reported yet again on another story effectively questioning BTCL procurement rules.
