Like in any troubled establishment, productivity at the beleaguered Botswana Development Corporation (BDC) is said to be at its lowest, with most of the parastatal’s employees’ extremely disgruntled.
Employees who have not been authorized to talk to the media at the government invest arm┬áwarn that┬áthe unfolding saga at the corporation is┬ánegatively impacting on the parastatal’s productivity levels.
They further warn that the 2011 controversies engulfing the company will no doubt affect the company’s financial performance in addition to scaring away potential investors who had intended to team up with the corporation in development projects.
“It is an open secret that the BDC ship is sinking. There is no denying that the Palapye Fengyue Glass Project has impacted negatively on the day to day management of the corporation. The leadership of the company is in total disarray, engaged in an elusive and massive firefighting exercise. The issues have escalated beyond normal damage control. Most senior executives spend most of the time locked up in their offices or invariably away from office. The situation has got so desperate that may be we need some divine intervention to save the corporation”, said a junior employee who explained that for the past five months his principals have not assigned him any particular job to do like they had previously and routinely done.
“We simply come to the office to register our presence. I think government should just suspend the entire executive management and engage a management company in the time being to run the affairs of the company. It does not help the situation to have these embattled managers in office when they are literally doing nothing. I guess some of them are already imagining life inside the prison,” said another senior manager who explained that the company is, to say the least, currently leaderless.
The employees are quick to point an accusing finger at the board and Finance and Development Planning Minister Kenneth Matambo under whose ambit falls the corporation.
“The board has to be decisive. You cannot allow a situation where the embattled managers continue fumblingly running the company. It is quite obvious that the executive management has taken a serious knock from the adverse press reports. They are nervous and, as such, you cannot expect them to be attentive to day to day administration of the huge business. There is absolutely no way they can be productive in that kind of an environment,” said another employee who added that he is literally idle as there is no work to do.
The employees say they hope the parallel investigations being conducted by the Directorate on Corruption and Economic Crime and the Parliamentary Select Committee will be expedited in order to restore order and sanity at the parastatal.
“Failure by the relevant authorities to act is suicidal. The ball is not rolling. The entire processes at the company have grounded. Something needs to be done; the early the better. The situation has become unbearable and some employees may be considering to jump ship before it’s too late,” said a distraught employee.
Efforts to reach BDC spokesperson, Gomolemo Zimona, at the time of going to press proved futile.
