Botswana Defense Force Retired Members Association Chairman Pius Mokgware has expressed his fears that some retired soldiers could be aiding and abetting part of the ongoing string of cash robberies in the country.
Mokgware said retired soldiers find them wallowing in poverty and therefore vulnerable to cash heist recruitments which compromise national security.
“Soldiers are well trained and experienced enough, they know the country’s security lapses. We have seen in many countries such as Mozambique where government disregarded members of the disciplined force and look at what is happening now,” said Mokgware.
He stated that retired soldiers have been complaining to government for over 19 years that the manner in which their pension is calculated is erroneous and outside the Botswana Defense Force act.
“The BDF act dictates that all soldiers that joined the force in April 2001 are eligible to join the new pension scheme. Secondly there is a thing called the denominator which is used to calculate pension. The one that is currently used is that of public service to calculate how much soldiers would have got,” added Mokgware.
He further said retired soldiers’ pension or net ratio value of soldiers is currently 23% of their salaries when in actual fact it is supposed to be 75%.
“It has been over 19 years since BDF commanders have been appealing to the government to rectify the manner in which this pension is done. So they came together to form a social club called A re itshekeng which has since taken government to court,” said Mokgware.
In 2018, the then Minister of Defense, Justice and Security Shaw Kgathi told Parliament that he was not aware that members of the BDF retire into poverty because of inadequate pension paid to them. He was responding to a question from Member of Parliament for Selibe Phikwe West Dithapelo Keorapetse. Keorapetse had asked the minister if he is aware that BDF soldiers retire into poverty because of inadequate pension paid to them, and that the recent amendments to the BDF Act will do little to address this problem.
Kgathi stated that in 2001, the Government moved from a Defined Benefit Scheme to Defined Contribution Scheme. “Unfortunately, the Defined Benefit Scheme was modelled on a civil servant who retires at 60 years and not on soldiers; some of whom retire at the age of 45 years considerably disadvantaging members of the BDF.
I have amended the BDF Act and it was recently passed by this Parliament as the BDF Act, 2018.
“The effect of the amendment led to the raising of the retirement ages in the BDF except for the ranks of Private and Lance Corporal, which were retained at the age of 45 and 47 respectfully. The raising of the retirement age in the BDF was on consideration of the fact that the increase of retirement ages will consequentially lead to a longer period of defined contributions with a net effect of 10-15 per cent increase in the Net Replacement Ratio (NRR),” Kgathi told Parliament.
