I am sitting with Joe Matome for dinner at Gaborone Sun, listening to the late Louis Nchindo waxing lyrical about why Masedi Farms is an excellent project.
Then there is an awkward moment as Nchindo picked on Matome: “I flew Joe and a bunch of white boys to Pandamatenga to do a study on the project. They came back and told me that it is not feasible. I almost fired him, ask him!” said Nchindo gesturing at Matome.
Not very good at fighting his corner, Matome grinned and mumbled: “Yes, I almost lost my job.” Matome and Nchindo’s relationship was full of such moments.
Nchindo was not exactly the tyrant who barked out orders liberally spattered with the f-word, but he was a tough talking boss who thought nothing of having a difficult conversation with his charges that most leaders would rather avoid.
In a series of interviews by the Slaughter and May consultants, scores of Debswana workers, who for years had to live with the wince-inducing ÔÇô Nchindo-esque tough talking, feel the former Debswana Managing Director did not know where to draw the line between gruff management style and bullying.
Asked by Slaughter and May consultants to describe Nchindo’s management style, former Debswana Corporate Finance Manager, Jeffrey Hogg, said, “he had the big man syndrome and treated his managers like errand boys.”
Psychologists believe that bullies erode an employee’s judgment, sometimes so subtly that it is hard to know what is unacceptable. From a number of interviews carried in the Slaughter and May report, Matome comes across as the classic text book victim of workplace bullying.
After years of silent acquiescence, Matome finally told Slaughter and May Consultants on November 24, 2004 that Nchindo was “a very powerful and domineering individual in the company and in the community” and that he was scared of him.
In a marathon interview, he admitted that he may have been misled by Nchindo. He further disclosed that he “began to feel uneasy about the Tourism Development Consortium Pty (ltd) in February 2002”, when the company shares were transferred to Nchindo and his son Garvas. Matome said he “was concerned about what Nchindo was attempting to do, but did not point it out to anyone at Debswana”. He blamed it all on “professional naivety and fear of Nchindo.”
Indications are that workplace bullying was part of the dark side of Debswana organizational life and almost all senior Debswana managers used the word fear to describe their relationship with Nchindo.
Former Debswana Financial Controller, Wayne Karew, told Slaughter and May that he occasionally attended Debswana board meetings and board members “appeared to fear Nchindo”.
Former Debswana Group Financial Manager, Andrew Walters, told the consultants that there were always complaints about Nchindo’s use of the company credit card “for the purchase of personal items and he used to run up huge debts to the company going back to the time he started. My two predecessors found this the most worrying aspect of their job. ?“They were under pressure to clear these debts but were frightened to tackle Nchindo about it because dire consequences would follow and they would get little support from De Beers or anyone else.”?Walters further told the Slaughter & May team that “everyone knew about Nchindo ÔÇô Anglo American and De Beers had huge files on him, but were frightened to take any action, because they thought he was a very close friend of the president and they didn’t want to rock the boat with their operations in Botswana.”?De Beers observes in one of its internal documents that Nchindo “was a member of the BDP Executive Committee and is generally credited with being the kingmaker”. ?The author of the document, a De Beers insider, states that in 1996 she was requested by Nchindo to proof read a document detailing a strategy to stabilize the party by doing away with factions that threatened to divide it.?“In essence, the strategy took the form of a recommendation to the party (de facto cabinet) to facilitate the departure of former head of state (Sir Ketumile Masire) by introducing an attractive retirement package. The strategy further acknowledged that in his stead the current leader (Festus Mogae) would be installed as is provided in the Constitution and that for the succession planning the then head of the army (Lt Gen Ian Khama) be requested to take early retirement and then brought into the Cabinet as Vice President”.?The De Beers document further states: “As it happens, all this has come to pass proving his intimate involvement in BDP politics.”
The fear of Nchindo created an environment of bullying and Matome, though also bullied, was believed to be one of the boss’ favorites. Former De Beers Botswana CEO, Sheila Khama, told the Slaughter and May team that “Matome was Nchindo’s man. He surrounded himself with runners who did whatever was asked.” This popular view of Matome, however, ignores one key part of his experience: the former Debswana Group Secretary was remarkably stoical about his suffering.
Bullied and pampered, Matome like most abuse victims seemed to have developed the Stockholm syndrome ÔÇô this is a psychological shift that occurs in kidnap, abuse or bullying victims when they are bullied and also shown acts of kindness by the bully. Victims who exhibit the syndrome tend to sympathize with and think highly of the bully. The victim develops more trust in the bully than in people trying to help them.
Perhaps sensing that Matome was a victim in what has come to be known as the Nchindogate, the prosecution offered to drop the charges against him in return for him being a state witness. Matome, however, turned down the offer and decided to stick with Nchindo to the end. He was also approached by friends and well wishers, including a former Speaker of Parliament who advised him to engage separate lawyers from Nchindo; he turned a deaf ear and decided to place his fate in Nchindo’s hands.
“He simply told them that there was no way he could abandon Nchindo. After Nchindo’s death he changed the story to say he would not abandon the family of a man he only referred to as his ‘mentor’”.
When the media started running stories from the Slaughter and May report, which reveals that he was a victim of workplace bullying, Matome teamed up with the Nchindo family to have the media stopped by the court from running stories from the report.
And when the Gaborone Regional Magistrate, Lot Moroka, ruled that Matome and Nchindo had a case to answer, Matome decided to remain silent and not repeat what he had told the Slaughter and May investigators that he was “misled” by Nchindo and that at times he acted out of fear.
Regional Magistrate Lot Moroka this week sentenced Joe Matome to three years and Garvas Nchindo to two years in prison.?While Nchindo’s has had his sentence wholly suspended, Matome will for his part do his time.
Meanwhile the piece of land in contention reverts back to the state.
Moroka convicted Matome, Garvas Nchindo and the Nchindo family businesses of Galconda and Tourism Development Consortium on all the nine counts of fraud and corruption.?Their charges centered on the Tourism Development Consortium Plot 55720, situated in Gaborone North, which the state says was obtained fraudulently.
This week Matome, once a powerful and influential aide to the swashbuckling Nchindo, cast a dejected figure of a confused man as he climbed the prison pickup to start a three year sojourn into the unknown.
