It is almost four years since I last wrote an opinion piece on corruption and mismanagement in Botswana. These articles were received differently by different people with some over reacting and in the process threatening to physically assault me. The most prominent being the one that I received from a disgruntled former cabinet minister who slapped me with a legal suit of P2million.
In his application to sue, all that the former cabinet Minister could say was that the article brought to him painful memories which he was trying to forget. On receiving the legal suit, I instructed my attorneys to counter sue; for there was nothing that I had written in that article that was defamatory.
What I had written was already public knowledge and more so that the former minister had already appeared before some commission that was sanctioned by the President of the Republic of Botswana. As if that was not enough, I received yet another taste of a vicious tirade from a onetime dear sister, a friend and what I often call, a role model. The distinguished and prominent human rights activist did not take kindly to one of the articles I wrote. That ultimately brought to an end to sister ÔÇô brother friendship leading to a heated exchange of mails between us and the rest is history.
For I write with no primary intention of pleasing any one, I have always not succumbed to acts of intimidation and threats. I have come to accept that life is a passage, that no one leaves this world alive and the best way to go through this passage is to live and let others live. I have also accepted that death is not the greatest loss in life; the greatest loss is what dies inside while still alive. It has also come to my realization that the greatest mistake you can make in life is to continually fear, and therefore, fail to question that which we believe is not right and for that reason, I will continue to engage in the public debate discourse whenever, the need arises without any fear or favour. Many of us think we know what corruption is or looks like; a cabinet minister digging his dirty fingers in the treasury and amassing ill-gotten wealth, an illicit deal carried out by politician (s,), such as purchasing a P46 000.00 fridge and P300 000.00 furniture, a government official or civil servants taking a cut in a deal, a policeman harassing and or conspiring with perpetrators or non perpetrators demanding and soliciting bribes.
In Botswana corruption has existed since the last four decades, however, much has not been written about it. This has thus earned Botswana’s government a reputation for “clean” governance of public resources and is often seen as a haven of prosperity and stability in a region full of economic and political misery. The NGO Transparency International has consistently rated Botswana the least corrupt of all African countries included in its Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI). The Country has also been awarded favorable ratings with respect to control of corruption by the World Bank Governance Index.
A survey on the literature of the corruption tsunami that swept across the country in the 1980s ÔÇô 1990s however, portrays as an illusion the many accolades the country has received. The presentation by one of the leading (African) scholars of African political economy, Abdi Samatar depicting the country as having managed to elude rampant corruption was full of flaws and that needs to be revisited. Samatar’s thesis is almost totally uncritical of the glaring negative features of Botswana’s corruption scandals especially those that beset the country in the 1990s at the hands of ruling BDP political elites and their close family members. (See Seleke Sunday Standard 30, 01, 2011, K Good, 1994 ).
Corruption has continued to raise its ugly head even under President Ian Khama’s leadership. The explosive rate of corruption under Presidency Ian Khama has been described by many of his critics as having elements of arrogance and one with the I don’t care attitude. This dramatic rise in corruption under Ian Khama is however, ironic since he came to power largely on anti corruption campaign platform. It must be noted that when President Ian Khama was inaugurated as the President on April fool’s day in 2008, he presented to the nation his road map characterized by many D’s, Discipline, Development, Dignity and Democracy with the fifth D, Delivery announced at BDP election victory party held at Diswinking Freedom Square in Old Naledi in October 2009. When he presented his road map, everyone had hope and faith in Khama. He was seen as a messiah and game changer, a magician who had every solution to a problem, little knowing that sooner than later, the much celebrated Khama would be implicated in corruption scandals.
His critics however, have always held a different view stating that Khama’s sees corruption only in other people’s eyes and not himself, his family members and close cronies. They have also argued that Khama has been so over protective to Isaac Kgosi the Director of DIS who has off late been implicated in corruption scandals. (Sunday Standard 1 June 2014). Many believe Khama has failed to control and bring Isaac Kgosi to order and hold a view that Kgosi is drunk with power, is extremely excited and often acts and operates outside his mandate by poking his nose even in matters that do not warrant him to do so. They submit that Kgosi thinks and believes he is indispensable and sees himself as the best thing that ever happened to Botswana in matters of security so much so that even when appearing at the Public Accounts Committee , he displays a high degree of arrogance and fails to answer to pertinent issues related to his organization’s activities and instead becomes irrelevant and chooses to talk about a personal phone call he received from his mother and also about the dress code of youngsters and juveniles (See Mmegi 23 May 2014).
The Sunday Standard newspaper of 1st June 2014 reported that millions of pula were transferred from the Directorate of Intelligence Services (DIS) bank account to the Bank account of Serowe North Development Trust Fund which was set up by President Khama in 1998. The Sunday Standard newspaper claims that it has intercepted bank transactions between the two bodies running into millions of Pula in which money was transferred on a number of occasions from the DIS account to the Serowe North Development Trust Bank account and on a few occasions from the Serowe North Development Trust Bank account back to the DIS bank account.
According to Sunday Standard, their investigations have also established that the Serowe North Development Trust account which was opened for donor contributions is now fully controlled by the DIS and trustees are in the dark about the operations of the account. It further stated that the DIS has exclusive signing rights over the account and trustees have been shunted outside. The Serowe North Development Trust Bank account was however, the subject of a Directorate on Corruption and Economic Crime (DCEC) investigations at the time President Khama removed the DIS and DCEC from the Ministry of Defense Justice and Security and placed them under the office of the President according to the Sunday Standard. It must be noted that this is not the first time DIS has been implicated in such scandalous acts. Previous reports have showed that money was siphoned from the National Disaster Fund to DIS.
In another dramatic turn of events, the Gazette news paper of the 21-27 2014 ran a series of stories that came close to fingering the Director of DIS, Isaac Kgosi as involved in shady un- explained deals. According to the Gazette news paper, DIS boss, Isaac Kgosi received from choppies stores the sum of P270 586.00 and this money was credited to Silver Shadows on 2th October 2010, a company wholly owned by Kgosi. According to the Gazette, the purpose of this transaction remained unexplained. It further stated that not only was Kgosi credited with the sum of money, it also alleged that Choppies also issued in Kgosi’s favor shares amounting to P3.9 Million.
The Gazette news paper claims that, it is in possession of transaction documents made between choppies and Kgosi’s company. Furthermore, as a continuation to their story, in their addition of the 4th June 2014, Gazette news paper carried yet another damning story on Kgosi’s company. One lady going by the name of Tshenolo Kgosi’, a 36 year old Tlokweng woman whose name appears in the Botswana Registrar of Companies Shareholders records jointly with that of Silver Shadows denied any involvement with this company despite inclusion of her name. One may argue that the recent wave of alleged corrupt practices that has swept across the country like a tsunami even implicating President Ian Khama and his close family members are indeed a clear testimony that the “Beautiful ones are not yet born”. This farce shows we are now on the final stage of corruption, where Khama’s D’s have become mere rhetorical statements of intent. It clearly shows that corruption has finally caught up with us, exposed the leadership terribly and may horribly expose us to the world.
This final stage I call it the systemic stage; the stage at which corruption is now a biome, a fully-fledged, pervasive way of governance. Other Batswana, who are not corrupt, work hard at their jobs and businesses without directly coming into contact with the thieving politicians and corrupt civil servants of the corrupt government, maintain their high ethical standards. But they too make a major compromise because they essentially take a vow of silence. However, the reality is that in Botswana, corruption is perpetrated by the few minorities, but actively tolerated, and even encouraged and promoted by the majority, for one reason or the other such as political partisanship and the emerging tenderpreneurs.
Ironically, even the perpetrators of corruption in our society are consumed by the corruption, but they are in oblivion and know not. They think they are smarter than the rest of us. The moment the majority, who are essentially the condemned victims, turn their backs on the minority, we will see a decline in corruption and this will transmute definitely to a better society for all. However, to keep quiet, to never speak out at all when one’s own country is being destroyed by flat-out mass looting of the national treasury, is in itself another form of taking part in the corruption or at least being guilty by association or guilty by some kind of inexcusable silence. I have hope, that one day the Beautiful ones will be born and knowing fully well that in this world redemption just comes once.
*Thabo Lucas Seleke is a Scholar & Researcher in Public Policy at UB, Department of PAS.
