Those who claim to have intimate knowledge of white-collar criminality within the high echelons of power whisper about the underworld bona fides of a certain ruling party MP.
The rumour is that this man is the godfather of a Government Enclave mafia that routinely wins a lot of lucrative tenders through a complex web of proxies planted in both the public and private sector. The context in which Molepolole North MP, Mohammad Khan, made his comments is unclear but he also raised fears about some of his colleagues benefitting from the economic stimulus package (ESP) at the expense of ordinary citizens.
““Many of us are asking the questions: how much of that money is going to go into the pockets of certain individuals from this very house? How much of that money is going to go to the Botswana Democratic Party coffers through commissions. These are questions that are being asked. We are nervous about P15 billion being injected under the ESP, Mr. Speaker, and then most of it probably ends up wasted in either individual’s pockets or the BDP,” he said.
Such bluntness pales in comparison to that used by Khan’s colleague from the other side of Molepolole. Speaking earlier on and quoting international examples, the Minister of Presidential Affairs and Public Administration, Eric Molale, had stated that there was nothing eyebrow-raising about Botswana putting together a stimulus package from its foreign reserves. Molepolole South MP, Dr. Tlamelo Mmatli, refuted such assertion, stating that the ESP strategy used in Molale’s examples was in service of resuscitating comatose national economies.
“Over the past couple of years, we have been told that our economy is doing well. In 2013, the president said that the economy was growing and the country coming out of debt. Last year, in his state-of-the-nation address, the president also said that the economy was growing. For that reason, we weren’t hoping that money would be drawn from foreign reserves when the economy has cleared such hurdles,” said the MP before finally taking his gloves off. “The ESP money is being handled like proceeds of crime ÔÇô and I know how thieves operate.”
In reference to a past stint in the Botswana Police Service, Mmatli said that he considered himself qualified to make such pronouncement because he knows the psychology of thieves. One characteristic general to thieves is that they keep changing their stories when they are interrogated about theft: now a thief says he has the loot and in the next instance, says he doesn’t.
“The other day Honourable [Minister of Finance and Development Planning, Kenneth] Matambo was denying that the money has actually been drawn down and so nobody should think that it is already available. On the other hand, some MPs on the other side of the house are saying the money is available. When you have a case like this where a story about the whereabouts of money keeps changing, I’m reminded of money theft cases that I used to investigate. A suspect would say he has the money, then change his story to say he doesn’t have it,” Mmatli said.
Some ruling party MPs, including Vice President and Leader of the House, Mokgweetsi Masisi, objected to this analogy. The latter said that the comparison with thieves was an imputation of criminal conduct on the part of those who are holding the purse strings.
“For me that is very clear and for the sake of respect for our standing orders, I plead, Mr. Speaker, for a consideration on your part for the interpretation of that because I very strongly feel, as leader of this house and leader on the government side that, that is an imputation of improper motives on our part,” the Vice President said.
While the Deputy Speaker, Kagiso Molatlhegi, didn’t rule Mmatli out of order, he pleaded with him to use less combative language in order to not rub some MPs the wrong way.
In his state-of-the-nation address, President Ian Khama said that in order to ensure its delivery, the ESP will be coordinated by the Vice President who will be assisted by a Cabinet Sub-Committee supported by a Technical Committee and District Development Committees.
“To strengthen the overall coordination of local delivery, District Commissioners will report on progress directly to the Ministry of State President. In addition, the delivery of ESP will be facilitated by a high level Project Implementation Unit,” Khama said.
Mmatli said that this was highly anomalous because the official custodian of state funds is the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning and not the Office of the President (OP).
“What is wrong with the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning which has been doing this work all along? Are its officers not trustworthy? Is the process that has been used to disburse government funds not reliable? Just this gives rise to suspicion and is the reason we should be vigilant. If there is a perception by some that the process of disbursing funds is slow, then the process can be speeded up to make it more efficient,” the MP said.
The replacement of the ministry with OP has also made Gaborone Central MP, Dr. Phenyo Butale, very jittery.
“Now we see centralisation in the Office of the President. Now you find the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning being a spectator where they should be leading. That is why the Honourable Minister seems to be clueless on the infamous ESP,” said Butale referring to Matambo who has had to brief parliament about the ESP.
Generally, there is a belief that Khama sidelined the minister in the process of designing the ESP. That may or may not be the case but Matambo bolstered that impression when, caught off guard, he evaded media enquiries about the package a few days after Khama announced it at a Botswana Democratic Party national congress in Gaborone. Matambo couldn’t do that with Gaborone Bonnington South MP, Ndaba Gaolathe, who, in the process of asking the minister to explain the ESP, revealed one detail that will deepen the unease of the suspicious.
“We would like to understand from the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning exactly what animal this ESP is. It is very clear that there is lack of understanding of what this animal is, including lack of understanding among cabinet ministers and even among civil servants,” the MP said.
One part of his question asked Matambo to state whether his ministry consulted with the Bank of Botswana “around how this animal might be fed because in any economy, if the central government is going to be spending money, that money has to be spent in the context of that country’s economic capacity and the ability to absorb certain quantums of money.”
The minister never gave a specific ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answer that the clearly question sought. Instead, he chose to explain the nature of the working relationship between his ministry and the central bank in broad terms.
“I can assure you that when we need to consult with Bank of Botswana we do. In this particular case, there is nothing different that we are doing from that which we have already done before. So, I am not overly concerned about should I have consulted Bank of Botswana? Should I have consulted that person or that person?” he said.
What is most interesting about this equivocation is that it does little to hide the fact that the governor of the central bank, the one person in the entire country whom the law gives primary custody of foreign reserves, was not consulted about the plan to dip into those same reserves.
The Leader of the Opposition, Duma Boko, has described the ESP as a grand scheme to “loot” the treasury. What has some people on tenterhooks is that the ESP money will be disbursed through a public procurement system which is essentially an overflowing cesspool of organised crime. Never having been successful in draining the pool of such effluence, the Directorate on Corruption and Economic Crime is not being sanitationally capacitated to deal with what could well be a Noah-like deluge of corruption and economic crime.
