The world over, security agencies are not known for honesty.
On account of their many gross mistakes and inaccuracies, we have also over the last few years, learnt that intelligence gathering is not a science.
Rather, it is a combination of lies, conspiracy, politics and outright desire to manufacture already pre-conceived outcomes.
By all intents and purposes, the Ministry of Home Affairs has become a security Ministry.
There is nothing wrong with that.
In fact, that is so the world over.
Our worry, however, stems from the fact that for Botswana, this ministry was given these sensitive security imperatives without taking it through the processes of preparing it of the gravity of its new mandate.
It is exactly because of that unpreparedness that today we have an immigration crisis where people are on a daily basis deported and others denied entry on the flimsiest of grounds.
On the one hand, we have the President and his cabinet always going out of the country to invite people to come and set up here as investors.
On the other, we have the Department of Immigration literally barring the same people entrance into the country on account of vague security concerns.
The excitement by the Department of Immigration to stop everybody at the gate is causing all sorts of corruption as people who want to enter the country are forced to cut corners and bribe their way into the country.
Today, officials at the Department of Immigration are arguably among the most corrupt, which was not the case a few years ago before these capricious standards were enforced to bar exactly the same people that the economy needs to move out of the current gridlock.
A growth in demand and with it a shortage of anything always begets corruption as people always devise ways to circumvent ultra-legal ways to achieve what they need.
Today there are huge numbers of people who are denied entry into the country.
These people are aware that they can pay immigration officials a few dollars for them to look the other way.
And they are doing it.
We call on government to once again review its latest standards when it comes to immigration.
The tragedy of it all is that officials from the Department of Immigration are not alone in this crime.
There is ample evidence that they are working in concert with some rogue elements at intelligence services who are supposed to be providing security clearances.
All of a sudden providing such clearance, it would seem, is a passport to wealth for officials concerned.
Who controls Transparency International in Botswana?
The world over, there is a global public debate over the accuracy, independence and indeed veracity of the findings by Transparency International.
For those who may not have an idea what TI is all about: this is a global organization that specializes in measuring corruption, or lack of it, among countries of the world.
For many years now, Botswana has featured in TI rankings as the least corrupt country in Africa.
And for that we should all be grateful as citizens because there are windfalls to be expected from it, like willingness by investors to want to do business in Botswana.
But, increasingly, there are Batswana who are beginning to have doubts on the extent to which TI reflects a true picture of what is really happening on the ground.
Inferred here is a suspicion that the people behind TI in Botswana could be well connected individuals who have a say in Government, or who have an interest in hiding the glaring acts of corruption in the country.
We hope this is not correct. But still, it would be reassuring to put some faces to this opaque organization that continues to sing endless ululations.
