The recent brouhaha surrounding the privatization of Air Botswana should not come as a surprise to PEEPA or, for that matter, to anybody acting on behalf of government in the ongoing negotiations with SA Airlink.
By its very nature, privatization is a very sensitive business and people have every reason to be jittery when they suspect that their interests are not being sufficiently protected.
And there is a lot at stake in Air Botswana.
It?s not just the assets but also national pride and the nationalist egos that go with it.
We can only hope that by now PEEPA have sufficient grasp of what is at stake.
For PEEPA and its negotiators to emerge with minimum bruises from the process, there is need for clarity, fairness, consistency and, above all, honesty.
Unfortunately, there is ambiguity in as far as Air Botswana privatization is concerned.
Before going into detail, we want to point out that the airline?s privatization process has fallen through the cracks on at least more than one occasion.
There is no need to belabour the causes and reasons for such flops herein, suffice to say that however one looks at it the failure to privatize Air Botswana in the past has dented, if not ruined, the chances of subsequent privatization transactions that were to follow.
When the PEEPA CEO Joshua Galeforolwe briefed the media in his boardroom in January, he explicitly declined to comment on the model of privatization Air Botswana was to follow, saying the negotiations with SA Airlink were at very sensitive stages.
That was understandable, but it has since emerged that such privatization could actually entail the winding up of Air Botswana and disposal of its assets.
The public has always had reasonable reasons to believe that the privatisation of Air Botswana would be through the arrival of a strategic partner like SA Airlink.
There was never created an impression that, in fact, such privatization would lead to Air Botswana being wound up.
After all, what kind of privatization is that?
The Air Botswana profits have been on a decline for some years now.
Being the former Air Botswana Chief Executive, Galeforolwe would certainly know that.
The current CEO was imported from South Africa under the promise that he would turn the airline?s fortunes around.
The nation is not being told if the supposed turnaround artist has failed in his task or not.
If he has failed to do what he was called to do here, the only honourable thing would be for him to be discharged, rather than have him to preside over the liquidation of Air Botswana; a task he was never called upon to do.
Unfortunately, instead PEEPA releasing a statement saying, ?SA Airlink proposed the operation of a new airline in joint venture with the government and the winding up of Air Botswana. This should involve the disposal of the assets and liabilities of Air Botswana and staff rationalization.?
That is disingenuous to say the least.
This is a classic case of playing semantics instead of coming out into the open to state the truth.
It is amazing that SA Airlink could have won the bid on the strength of their suggestion to dissolve the existing airline.
Playing with words aside, the sub-text of the message as released by PEEPA is that Air Botswana will, in the end, be dissolved.
By whatever name, a new entity will be formed.
We do not know if that entity will be the same as that envisaged by government when they set out to privatize Air Botswana.
The nation is not taken into confidence and yet is required to provide a blanket leap of faith.
That does not augur well for the process of privatisation. It also does not augur well for the credibility of PEEPA and those who are acting or negotiating on behalf of government.
We have in the past supported privatisation in principle while drawing public attention to the high stakes inherent in the process.
We have also in the past warned that there could be behind the scenes maneuvers, with some people trying to benefit ahead of every one else from the sale of what is effectively state assets.
We hope we are wrong, but why the seemingly secretive and indecent haste to dissolve Air Botswana.
Even before the Air Botswana confusion, we were beginning to suspect that may be the people who are so violently anti-privatisation, citing it as the biggest opportunity for public fraud, have a point after all.
