The decision by Botswana to create Botswana Development Corporation is probably one of the best ever taken.
BDC was meant to localize a lot of what the country had been spending on the international arena. “By Botswana products” were to ultimately become “Buy Botswana products” so that the lives of Batswana were improved by the generation of employment and also boosting the economy of the country by selling local products to other countries. The only mistake of this initiative by the Government, I presume, under estimated the significance of the establishment and the amount of money put into its establishment. There wasn’t much of a Governmental “Big Brother” oversight.
There were no strong checks and balances over many of BDC’s Head Office and its subsidiaries.
Board Members and General Managers saw this loophole and used it to their personal benefit and greed. That is how this rotten culture of greed was branded into BDC working culture. Simply put, BDC is a company with millions of Pula that nobody really cared to monitor.
From the recent years, with so much of this corruption practices uprooted, but nothing really being done about it, top positions, especially at the Board and Managerial levels were given to women. Maybe this mindset was borne by a belief that women, unlike men, do not condone corruption practices. How wrong that mindset was by the Government!
Women have proven to be even worse.
Men who love material things, easily expose themselves after dealing in corrupt practices. After being bribed and accumulating obscene amounts of money, they immediately go all out and buy their ream toys, you see expensive cars that don’t match monthly salaries, or build double story mansions worth millions. These raise eye brows and questions not just by work mates but authorities. And that’s how they are exposed. But though I am a woman and should be speaking for women, I beg to differ when it comes to women.
Women who hold very high positions are materialistic too. They want and will get those expensive things they long wanted. But after getting that bribe or misusing funds, they will, so to speak, “hibernate” the money for sometime, having the patience to even stack it four to five years before digging it out and spoiling themselves. That is by the time when everybody would have forgotten and will not question as to how she bought a Range Rover. After all, “women are good at saving, she has been saving a lot.”
BDC and all its subsidiaries procure products and services through tendering processes. And the decision making usually lies with top management. That is where all corruption starts. There is a phrase that goes, “Njesa ke go jese” meaning, “scratch my back, I scratch yours”. No matter the magnitude of a project of procuring services or products, it seems in BDC and its companies, “sengwe must se jewe”. People in this country always wonder how detailed information about under the table business deals reaches news papers when it was monitory exchange done by two people.
Well, as the saying goes, three is a crowd. The minute a third party knows about under the table dealings, a lot can, and has happened where news spreads like wild fire. A domino effect depicts exactly how society ends up knowing about such corruption behaviors and becomes open secrets, and ultimately reaching local news papers. Greed and selfishness is usually the reasons happy agreements become sour and one party boils to a point of no return and start to whisper.
As a Motswana woman who was in the employment of BDC some years ago, I know some of these corrupt practices by top management being the corridor whispers by BDC employees. A lot of corruption practices have surfaced and some silenced in many of BDC subsidiaries, some of which have now even gone down under and/or have been liquidated.
As the saying goes, there is no smoke without fire. The recent forensic audit on BDC in particular the Glass Manufacturing project in Palapye audit reports have since been submitted and seen a lot of top managers facing squabbles and some Directors fired by the Finance Minister, who has also at one time been a BDC employee.
It is clear that Batswana might not know who dealt with corruption and how many were they. Only the top shots themselves know where the rotten smell is coming from, but Batswana and political bodies are smelling a rat, a very big rat for that matter.
Even at other smaller BDC subsidiaries, news papers have reported serious corruption dealings. Some have not even surfaced and reached the public domain as yet. Lobatse Tile which was a BDC subsidiary has since gone bust and was liquidated. There was never a full report that Batswana were given.
It was in the best interest of Batswana to know just what sank Lobatse Tile given that it was formed using public money.
Was it just the tip of an “Ice berg”?
The company had a lot of assets, movable and immovable, but it has surfaced that many of very expensive assets and Plant and equipment has fallen in some foreign companies hands, who top BDC managers are in partnership with. One very top Director apparently has shares in one of those companies that bought expensive assets from Lobatse Tile. She has a son living overseas and is said to be driving one of the latest Ferrari sport cars valuing at around Five million Pula or more.
Just adjacent to Lobatse Tile is Lobatse Clay Works, another BDC owned entity that mines Clay and manufactures Clay bricks and products. The company has also hit newspapers a few years ago when its General Manager and another top manager both of Zimbabwean origin, were involved in a scandal that involved corruption practices and bribery in tender processes. The Board of Directors investigated and ultimately fired the culprits. In their place, the Board of Directors replaced the positions with seemingly trust worthy individuals, once bitten twice shy. Unfortunately, since its BDC we are talking about here, it has since hit the BDC corridors from what I gather as a former employee that the management of LCW has and is dealing with a lot of corrupt practices also from the tendering processes, receiving bribes..
The company is said to have retrenched about 70% of its operational staff under the heading, “The Company is experiencing high costs of production but is not doing well with Sales” and thus little money is coming in to cover costs. Interestingly enough, no manager was retrenched and it thus seemingly means the remaining 30% operating staff is still headed by the same number of managers. So much for saving operating costs in LCW.
Still in Lobatse, lies Lobatse Can Manufacturers, another BDC 100% owned entity. They manufacture cans for local and international markets. The company is also of late had managerial squabbles and saw the GM position being vacant. There has been rumors of corruption practices in the company.
As Batswana citizens, we all indirectly or directly own BDC. As owners of Botswana Development Corporation it is thus In our best interest to see to it that, in all fairness, our assets are managed and handled by individuals who have our best interests at heart.
