This week, Botswana Television ran an interesting news clip highlighting the fact that some citizen contractors are still in the habit of abandoning jobs unfinished.
The issue of citizen contractors abandoning projects unfinished was an in-thing in the 1990s.
After a lot of debate and public reprimanding, citizen contractors (or at least a majority of them) seemed to have gotten their lot together in that regard.
Like many Batswana, we had come to believe that this was an old habit of the past which had since been kicked away into the dustbins of history.
But then it seems, as the old saying goes, old habits die hard.
Like a drug addict, for citizen contractors it would seem like kicking away this habit is simply not easy.
There has been talk in the past to the effect that those contractors that leave jobs unfinished after claiming millions from Government would be blacklisted.
When Government made such an announcement, the general public wholly supported government as it had become very clear that the nation was losing out millions to irresponsible contractors who were playing the citizen card to get jobs only to abandon them half way through after claiming what in their parlance is called mobilization fees.
To start with, we want to point out from the very beginning that it is not every citizen contractor who does not honour their contracts with government.
A great majority of citizen contractors take their obligations very seriously; hence it would be improper to tar the whole lot with the same brush.
But still, even the good ones have to understand that public patience against such gross acts of irresponsibility, however few and far between, is not infinite. The good ones have to talk to their un-performing colleagues.
In the past, there was a bit of public indulgence and tolerance at the contractors’ irresponsible behaviour not least because the economy was doing well and could, therefore, manage with relative ease to shoulder such irresponsible behaviour.
That is no longer the case.
The economy is under strain and every penny counts; hence it is imperative for Government to get good quality for every thebe spent on projects, including those projects undertaken by citizens.
In particular, citizens have to be exemplary in that regard.
It is worth noting that, in general terms, Batswana have, to a large degree, been supportive of citizen empowerment.
In particular, many Batswana have been urging Government to use its procurement budget to empower citizens.
With construction taking a sizeable amount of the Government development budget, there was a push that citizens be given a fair share of that budget.
That was, in our opinion, reasonable and fair enough.
But like we put it above, going forward is going to be difficult for the public to convince the Government of the fruits of citizen empowerment when it is clear that government is not being met halfway by the citizens that the Government is going out of its way to support.
In all fairness to Government, there have been concerted and deliberate moves to empower citizens by the state.
That move has been particularly more pronounced at Local Government level where small scale projects are clustered.
Unfortunately, government gestures have not been met halfway by citizen contractors.
It, therefore, came as a shock for us to learn from Botswana Television that some projects in Kanye have been abandoned half way through, as it were.
We call on Government to revisit the issue of blacklisting contractors that leave jobs unfinished. It should not just end there; these contractors should be brought before the courts with the aim of government reclaiming public money lost to such irresponsible behaviour.
Such contractors should not be given anymore government contracts and tenders.
Government has a responsibility to ensure that public finances are utilized optimally and to the best possible interest of the public.
Such a responsibility becomes even more acute and more pronounced at a time like this when the economy is under strain.
For countless times, the Minister of Finance has repeated the mantra that we have to tighten our belts.
We had imagined that the minister was talking to everyone of us including citizen contractors. But as it turns out it is a matter of concern that some of the citizen contractors are not even wearing any belts around their belts.
Back to the BTV story, the most interesting part was when an engineer from the Southern District Council tried in vain to give some reasons for the delay and cost overruns of the projects in Kanye.
The more he tried to defend the contractor and justify the delay, the more he exposed his handler.
It was the lamest excuse we had heard in a long time.
