The government has hiked remuneration for the Directorate on Corruption and Economic Crime (DCEC) employees with effect from 1st April. The adjustment will see DCEC employees financial compensation-which is not technically part of their salary -boosted after the “Government decided to introduce Conditions of Service for DCEC” through various allowances. The announcement was made through a Public Service Management Directive No.6 of 2014 which was issued by Director of Public Service Management (DPSM) Cater Morupisi this week.
According to Morupisi’s savingram, DCEC employees will receive a 15 percent basic salary as commuted overtime allowance and a special duty allowance at the rate of 15 percent of their basic salaries. DCEC officers of C1 salary scale and below will also receive a payment of P200 monthly utility allowance. Asked what necessitated the move to introduce allowances for the DCEC only and why the raise was not applied across the public service, Morupisi said the DCEC is a separate entity with separate conditions of service. “The new DCEC Act gives the Minister (Presidential Affairs and Public Administration) the right and powers to determine new conditions of service for DCEC employees as a separate entity,” said Morupisi.
“However, government will continue to consider some of the conditions of service for civil servants and where necessary improve them. You have to also bear in mind that officers in government entities like the DCEC are different from other public servants. For instance you can’t compare an army officer with an administrator. Therefore the government looks at them differently,” he said.
According to Morupisi, the practice that from time to time certain government departments may have their conditions improved over others has been there and it is not a new trend. “The way an entity operates determines how their conditions of service should be improved. For instance, nurses have 30 percent commuted allowance. These allowances are never the same across the public service,” he said. However, the Botswana Federation of Public Service Union (BOFEPUSU) has condemned the introduction of allowance solely for DCEC employees. The union’s deputy secretary general Ketlhalefile Motshegwa described the latest development as a move “calculated at bringing divisions within the public service and the workers in general. The government should treat civil servants equally; some workers should not feel that they are special than others.
This move has the potential to divide and bring low morale within the public service,” he said. Motshegwa added that “the ruling class is greasing the palms of DCEC officers and renders them even more toothless.” He said the move is also likely to bring suspicion and mistrust within government employees because only Botswana Defence Force (BDF), Botswana Police, Prisons Service, and Directorate of Intelligence Services (DIS), Directorate on Corruption and Economic Crime (DCEC) and Senior Management (Executive Management) officers had their allowances adjusted recently.
