It’s not raining but pouring at the BDF Retired Members Association as the generals are revolting against the National Executive Council. A letter written to the secretary general of the organization has been drafted and delivered by Monthe Marumo & Co, a law firm representing the renegade generals.
The generals headed by the past immediate commander of the BDF, Lt Gen Galebotswe are raising issues of the legitimacy of the current NEC on the last week before elections which were slated for this past Saturday. Interesting enough, the Saturday meeting was an elective general assembly where such issues would receive appropriate responses.
The real reasons for attempting to stop the AGM lies in the fact that all these generals save for one are members of A re Itshekeng, a pressure group that has taken government to court for the inappropriate denomination factor on their pensions. Other generals that are cited as members of the concerned group as according to the letter from the law firm are; Maj Gen Oitsile, Maj Gen Mokgware, Brig Dikobe as well as Brig Modiko. The inclusion of the name of Brig Masisi in this A re Itshekeng team was a deliberate way to spite the man.
Brig Masisi merely attended the planning meeting as an intruder who went on to make a disclaimer on social media right after the meeting. The meeting was convened to discuss the illegality of a NEC that has been running the association for a full two years. And there is an irony in the timing of this letter which falls short of being an interdiction document.
Brig Masisi has gone on to officially denounce the list through his lawyers, Moesi & Co who are his legal representatives. On Friday he requested his legal representatives to write Monthe Marumo & Co a letter that disassociates him from the rest of the generals as he was cited in the letter emanating from their offices.
In yesterday’s elections, Brig Masisi was pitted against Maj Gen Mokgware. In the existence of the association since 2008, there has never been such stiff competition in running for positions for the NEC. The campaign was long and tedious. For the first time there have been lobby teams which were running so parallel more like a set of rails on a railway line.
Masisi’s team which is named Veterans Think Tank has its philosophy in negotiating with government regarding the erroneous pension transfer from what is known as Defined Benefit Pension Scheme to what is now known as Botswana Public Officers Pension Scheme.
Mokgware’s team is defined by their approach to the matter by preferring the route of litigation. The matter is currently before Justice Leburu of the High Court of Botswana in Gaborone. Each member of A re Itshekeng has contributed P1 000 each to drive the litigation process.
I hope the association will never have to go through the untidy situation where teams have gone out to fight more like politicalparties. I wonder what the teams would have done in the absence of the Covid-19 pandemic; we probably would have seen a display of regalia and slogans on placards.
Elections are a strange phenomenon within the military. The military is dictatorial by nature and the general’s word is final. It is so frustrating for the general officers to be undermined by juniors who are refusing to take their orders. The generals want to continue to lead and do not want to accept that the way through to leadership in the civilian world is through a democratic process.
Team General Mokgware through their lawyers wrote a letter to NEC denouncing the leadership body and they came to this conclusion through the information from a single letter. The subsequent correspondence from the Registrar of Societies was never considered, the registrar had written another letter which gave the NEC giving an indefinite extended period to fix issues around the submission of their returns.
It is embarrassing to say the least that former BDF generals can form a lobby group that sought to exclude others from the leadership of the organization that now serves the interests of the retirees. Further to that, it is even disappointing that the generals wanted to interdict the NEC that is central to the preparations of the AGM where the new leadership would emerge.
A lot of questions arise from this legal tussle that emerged on the run up to elections. The generals were prepared to do anything and everything to delay the elections by a further twenty one days. This would ultimately give them sufficient time to fix their leaky campaign. But that came to naught. The days ahead would allow for the maturity of their block registered people’s membership to mature and have their first deductions taken from their accounts and therefore rendering them legitimate and eligible members.
There is a lot that comes to question right now. It is the junior ranks that have started to doubt their leadership. Where is the value of integrity if generals can stoop so low to bend the rules to only favour their wishes and desires? A majority of these generals have been trained at Royal Military Academy, Sandhurst. At this military institution, integrity is listed as the number one value expected in every officer.
The absence of integrity in the British army is sufficient reason to call for a dismissal of an officer from the ranks of the military. One thing that terrifies me the most is that if we had gone to war with the type of generals of this calibre, we would have been wiped off by the enemy. This would happen while vacillating and going forth and back on decisions.
As an establishment that seeks to manage the affairs of retired military personnel, the BDF RMA must after this testing period reorganize and rebrand itself. Going forward, the constitution of the organization must be revisited and strengthened to avoid groups with ulterior motives from using the name of the association for personal ulterior motives.
