The issue of how best to reform the civil service is one that will not go away for as long as the civil service continues to occupy a central role in Botswana’s political economy.
In Botswana, the civil service does not only implement government programs, it literally crafts them ÔÇô from beginning to the end.
For a greater part, our politicians, including many in cabinet are incapable of thinking strategically as to produce a basic policy document.
Many of them are plugged from the streets and thrust into cabinet where they are expected to make sense of intricate policy issues in government.
Without proper leadership traditionally provided at civil service level that can only be a disaster in waiting.
And today’s civil service lacks leadership.
It is common knowledge that ministers depend on civil servants on whose intellect they rely to interpret and in other instances even explain numerous issues that would otherwise be expected to be basic.
That is why because they are aware of their power, the civil servants have often resorted to misleading their supposed principals, hiding information from them or, as it happens so frequently, just defying the political leadership.
Our point is that while our civil service is far from perfect, what we have seen over the last few months has gone a long way to underscore and highlight an absence of leadership.
There does not seem to be any objective goals or targets set for anyone.
Everybody, and these include permanent secretaries many of whom are not suitable to be holding such positions, seem to be wobbling along, not knowing where they are going let alone what is expected of them.
There is a terrible mismatch of resources which have led to key roles in the civil service being allocated totally unsuitable, totally undeserving and totally inadequate individuals.
The upshot of it all has been a collapse of morality, which will inevitably lead to the collapse of the structure itself.
The main reason why the edifice has not yet crumbled is simply because it was anchored on very strong foundations that had a long history of strong and intuitive leadership.
The current practitioners, and here we are referring to the top leadership, have themselves not done anything to ensure continuity of the institution.
As head of the civil service, Eric Molale has been an unmitigated failure.
During Festus Mogae’s time, I had casually dismissed the PSP as a loveable oaf because I was confident that as a former illustrious PSP himself, Mogae could easily take care of himself.
That is not the case with Ian Khama, which is why I now find it crucial to point out that Molale is a downright liability who has outstayed his usefulness.
He has presided over an unprecedented scale of the civil service politicization.
Because senior civil servants live under the constant fear of being sacked if they tell the truth, a culture of gainsaying their political bosses has reached alarming levels under his leadership.
He comes across as a man who has reached the ceiling of his thinking abilities.
At times, he comes across as a man who has been thrown into the deep end and called on to swim before taking any swimming lessons, which can be the only plausible explanation why he seems to be drowning under a mountain of challenges facing a civil service that craves reforms more than ever before.
The tragedy of it all is that no matter how closely one looks there does not seem to be anybody around him to take over the top spot when he leaves, another possible explanation why the president has resigned himself to the fate of straddling along with what materials of low quality he has in his boardroom. For the president, there is comfort in pretending the problem does not exist.
It is an old tactic but it will not continue for too long given the central role occupied by the civil service in Botswana.
It has been a tragedy watching how the civil service mistreated its most gifted under Eric Molale.
Talented people have left ÔÇô either because they could not stand the decay or simply because they were sacked as they were not in good books of the high priests.
Telling the emperor that he did not have his clothes on has become a grave crime.
In the meantime mediocrity rules the roost.
The only people who seem to be making it in today’s civil service are those who have a history in rural administration, and not coincidentally, this includes the PSP himself.
Everybody else has either been sidelined or sacked.
But as results show, for all their exaggerated sense of self-importance, former district commissioners are not our best minds for today’s challenges facing the civil service.
The strike was terribly mismanaged.
DPSM failed to provide leadership. But the PSP was also nowhere to be found.
Shockingly both the permanent secretary to the president and director of public service management have kept their jobs.
Neither has been sacked or at least resigned in admission of their glaring failures as supposed leaders.
It also does not look like any of them has had the humility to learn from the debacle, which is why they continue to churn initiatives meant to undermine the viability of public sector trade unions.
At the moment very few people derive any pleasure or self-fulfillment from working in the civil service.
We still have time to change all that.
I remain convinced that we still have an opportunity to once again make the civil service an employer of choice.
Before Molale came into the scene there used to a man called Molosiwa Selepeng who held the position of PSP.
Under circumstances never explained, Selepeng was unceremoniously demoted and banished to Australia where he currently serves as Botswana’s High Commissioner. I gather he had badly fallen out with Festus Mogae, his former mentor and friend.
Khama should consider bringing back Selepeng to help him reform the civil service.
This is the last edition of the Sunday Standard this year. I had wished to use this opportunity to wish all our readers a Merry Christmas.
But the gravity of the problems facing our civil service seemed too important to be postponed to next year.
I hope to see you all in the New Year.
Please enjoy, do not indulge.
