Two weeks ago, Botswana Government publicly distanced itself from a confidential report that had been prepared by officials at the Ghanzi District Council on how to use underhand tactics to force Basarwa out of Ranyane.
While the decision by the presidency to disassociate itself from the Council officials is most welcome, the mere fact that government officials somewhere in the state apparatus could have prepared such an elaborate, security sensitive and legally offensive report without knowledge, much less explicit authority from the Office of the President is shocking.
While we want to give the Office of the President the benefit of the doubt that indeed they knew nothing, much less sanctioned the report, we also want to point out that there is an ongoing case on the matter against which the High Court has made a ruling.
The fact that officials at Ghanzi District Council acted as lone wolves to hatch and ultimately undertake such an expansive project with such far reaching national and, indeed, international ramifications boggles the mind.
It gets even more stupefying when one gets to remember that the same officials effectively defied and violated the official government policy as publicly outlined by the highest office in the land.
A fair question might be asked, just who could the Ghanzi Council officials be working for?
And on this one, we want to be upfront in absolving and vindicating President Ian Khama.
Instead, we have to look around the crooks masquerading as aides and advisors around the state president.
There is a well known symbiosis between senior personnel at the Office of President and officials at the Ghanzi District Council.
This evil alliance should be broken.
Our suspicion is that this alliance may well be the invisible hand behind this illegal, but seemingly well coordinated process to evict Basarwa from Ranyane using tactics that government has publicly said they should not be used.
To do what the Ghanzi Council officials did takes the backing and guaranteed protection from somebody at the top.
The alliance we are making reference to has over the last few years been rapaciously using their power, influence and office to amass even farms right from the Ghanzi block to as far away as Barolong farms.
We call on President Ian Khama to act, and put in place a system of disciplinary instruments that would hold these cabals accountable; if not for stealing land then at least for abusing public office to forcibly remove Basarwa from Ranyane under crooked circumstances that are entirely in variance and antithetical to government’s publicly stated intentions.
The Presidency reacted after Sunday Standard published a story on the report.
Our worry is that there are many other things that go unreported carried out in the name of government policy when, in actual effect, the intent is for personal gain and benefit.
On account of what happened at the Ghanzi District Council, we are unable to think of a more glaring example of how public office is privatized and reduced to a personalized machinery to serve the interests of an individual.
Once again, we are extremely worried that such explicit racketeering using public office, such as has happened at Ghanzi, could have taken place within the public service without the knowledge of the Office of the President until the story was picked by a newspaper.
These incidents in the public service where the left hand does not know what the right hand is up to are a source of concern.
In fact, this disjointed coordination is behind international public relations backlashes that this country suffered during the protracted Central Kgalagadi Game Reserve saga, where a few overzealous officials, clearly pursuing their personal and, in some instances, illegal and self-serving motives.
The report by Ghanzi District officials, entitled Ranyane Relocation Phase II, should be viewed as blasphemous.
It is not enough for government to just release a statement distancing itself.
Action has to be taken against those found to have had a hand.
And there should be no bounds.
Only then will President Khama absolve himself from a perception now entrenched that he has a soft spot for corruption, especially when it is committed by those within his circle.
