This week we learnt from South Africa that a former National commissioner of that country’s police service had been sentenced to prison for fifteen years after he was found guilty of corruption ÔÇô specifically receiving bribes and dabbling with drug lords.
Given the seniority of the position of police commissioner, this is a big symbolic step forward in South Africa’s efforts to prove that nobody is above the law and that corruption does not pay and that it will be fought against no matter who is involved.
Like in South Africa, official corruption in Botswana, especially among the ruling elite, has become a curse.
It was on those grounds that sometime in the early 1990s Government decided to establish what has since come to be known as the DCEC (Directorate on Corruption and Economic Crime).
Established by an Act of Parliament and enjoying some quasi-judicial independence, the DCEC is mandated to investigate corruption and other white collar crimes.
While the Directorate was at inception hailed by many as a good step and demonstration of political will on the part of our leaders to root out what has since become pervasive official corruption, over the years many Batswana have become increasingly sceptical of DCEC.
The scepticism against DCEC is premised on the fact that more than ten years on, the organisation has not lived up to public expectations.
While directorate is technically and legally independent of political interference, there is growing public perception that notwithstanding its operational independence the DCEC is itself unable to take advantage of the space given it by law.
Recent leadership appointments at the directorate, where the director is apparently related to the State President, have cast further darkness on DCEC’s potential to redeem itself.
But those perceptions are of little worry to us at the moment. We have all the confidence that it will not be long before the said perceptions are proved baseless and unfounded.
What is of worry to us is what we have said before that DCEC, as currently constructed, does not have the capacity to fight head for head the kind of white collar crime that seems to be not only growing in scale but also in sophistication.
At the moment, DCEC does not seem much better than the Botswana Police Service General Duties Unit. Our belief remains that DCEC should be equipped with detective and forensic capacity and expertise that by far exceeds what is currently obtaining.
It lacks the kind of forensic expertise that is necessary for it to detect, dissect and investigate serious crime.
We have always said that the head of DCEC should be a person of such training the background of which reflects the important task that the directorate faces.
We have suggested that consideration be made to change the Act to make it mandatory that the directorate is led by either a senior lawyer, a senior accountant or a senior forensic auditor which, it is our view, are the few professions that appropriately match the enormous task of crime investigation and detection that DCEC faces.
It is unfortunate that at the moment we seem to treat the job of DCEC Director as purely administrative ÔÇô which is in our opinion both misleading and irresponsible.
Corruption is often cited as a security risk in the same breath with such evils like poverty and inequality.
Botswana Government has to renew its commitment to fighting corruption.
At all levels of the ruling elite, there are indications that political patronage has taken root.
It has not gone unnoticed that people who not so long ago were not very much different from street beggars have, in a span of just over two years when the new administration came to power, become instant millionaires, thanks to multi-billion Pula worth of contracts.
This casts doubt on government’s sincerity when they say they have zero tolerance on corruption.
Left unattended, corruption tends to divide and polarise the nation.
It is not a secret that the divisions that plagued the ruling Botswana Democratic Party and led to the formation of the Botswana Movement for Democracy have roots that can easily be traced to state sponsored corruption where President Khama’s favoured lieutenants were seen to be corruptly amassing wealth while everybody else watched.
In another context, the violence that followed a General Election in the eastern Republic of Kenya two years ago, while political also had the undercurrents of official corruption.
We hope President Khama’s government will once again reiterate a commitment to fighting corruption, including that which is practiced by the administration’s favourites.
