Over the last few weeks, Botswana Development Corporation has been flighting adverts making public announcement of intention to liquidate glass manufacturing plant in Palapye. Given the amount of effort, money and emotions invested in the Plant, the announcement to liquidate must be one of the most humiliating that Government has had to face coming from the investment arm in a very long time.
The Glass Manufacturing Plant was right from the beginning an investment made in hell. It was ill-conceived, corruptly-wrought with all the known tenets of good corporate governance broken in its wake. In fact it was inevitable that the kind of controversy it elicited on account of corruption allegations left so many destroyed careers in its wake. Can it be any wonder that so many reputations of erstwhile luminaries have been irreparably destroyed? But some of us saw it long in coming. Just how it escaped BDC and the shareholder still boggles the mind, especially because the Board of Directors that was unceremoniously sacked was primarily sacked because they dared to ask uncomfortable questions surrounding the Plant. At the height of the controversy even President Ian Khama was dragged into the fracas. So determined was Government to see the project through, against all evident that President Khama agreed to go to Palapye to allay any fears that the plant would ever be abandoned. He told residents as a matter of fact that Government would stick to the project as it would bring employment.
Against all accruing evidence, the project became a signature project for government’s economic diversification programme. Now everything lies in crumbles. BDC stands to lose close to a billion Pula in wasted investments at the hands of crooks that with a little bit of background checks and vetting could easily have been exposed for what they were. Sunday Standard was the first publication to write the story on the Shenanigans surrounding the Glass Manufacturing Plant. We paid a heavy price for it. We were corralled before the court of public opinion for what at the time was said to be irresponsible journalism. BDC management at the time literally told us that in future we would be taken to court for such kind of reporting. Advertising was withdrawn for what was viewed a witch-hunt by us against some executives at the Corporation.
Painfully we were cast as unpatriotic. And all these for having stated among other things that an independent engineer engaged by BDC itself had raised serious damning allegations about the plant. The engineer had found that the contractor had been paid way above what work had been done at the site at the time. We also wrote that BDC was dangerously exposed as no cover had been put in place to hold the contractor and indeed the BDC partner liable should anything go wrong. And now things much bigger than even The Sunday Standard article could have foreseen at the time have gone wrong. BDC stands to lose money.
While we have been vindicated, for us this is not a time to show any signs of triumphalism. Our hope is that going forward what wrongs have happened at Palapye will not be repeated. BDC is too important to be allowed to tread so irresponsibly near a sharp cliff as has been the case over the last few years. Now is the time to rebuild not just the credibility and integrity of BDC but also its brand, including among creditors; local and international. The tragedy of it all is that the damage which now has to be repaired at great cost could easily have been avoided had people looked at the project with sober minds rather than climb the high horses that we saw people in government and BDC ride at the height of the controversy.
