The abrupt and sudden resignation of the Permanent Secretary at the Ministry of Lands and Water Affairs has set tongues wagging. The resignation of a key insider has made this government look irredeemably corrupt. “Corruption is happening and I refuse to be part of it,” reads a note I have seen that she had sent to her colleagues and friends. Speaking at an event to launch the new land allocation system in Moshupa a little over a month ago, president Mokgweetsi Masisi introduced Bonolo Khumotaka as a best performing permanent secretary inside government.
This alone has made her abrupt departure from government appear even more dramatic. Senior government officials say she was always a first tier insider who was in first name basis with the president. When she warns of corruption in high places, she knows what she is talking about because she has been there among the high priests. Ms Khumotaka’s resignation should be looked at in the broader context of how Botswana Government lamely took away the mandate of PPADB (Public Procurement and Asset and Disposal Board) and transferred it to ministries and Permanent Secretaries. That was effectively taking the power from PPADB and giving it to the President and the Permanent Secretary to the President. These are the appointing authorities of the Permanent secretaries. And all the powers the permanent secretaries have or exercise do so on a delegatory basis on behalf of these two. That is not all. Ms Khumotaka’s resignation serves as a reminder – if we ever needed any – that the way the president dealt with the director general at DCEC (Directorate on Corruption and Economic Crime), was actually intended not to root out corruption but to actually kick it under the carpet from where, thankfully it is now smouldering into a blaze.
Ms Khumotaka’s resignation shows that contrary to popular belief, there are still civil servants who really get fed up with corruption. These are public servants that refuse to take part in late night nocturnal meetings were tenders are discussed far away from the prying public eyes. Lest we forget, before she resigned, Khumotaka’s immediate political supervisor at the ministry was minister Kefentse Mzwinila. Mzwinila is one of the senior officials around President Mokgweetsi Masisi who before the DCEC director general Tymon Katholo was suspended had wanted not just to interview but to also warn of possible criminal charges. Mzwinila survived because other officials at the office of the president lied to the president that Tymon Katholo had been secretly meeting former president Ian Khama. These are the people who by now know Masisi quite well and are able to play to his fears, his weaknesses and his paranoias. They are now playing like a fiddle. And they know well that Khama has become a Masisi bogeyman.
Any mention of Khama sends Masisi foaming at the mouth. And the prospect of Katholo meeting Khama simply drove Masisi’s nuts. Once the president heard that Katholo had been meeting Khama in Johannesburg, which was a lie cloaked as intelligence he called him a traitor and ordered the suspension of Katholo – one of Botswana’s most venerated public servants. This is dangerous because it offers a rare but shocking peek into how big decisions at the highest office on the land are made. The president needs multiple sources of intelligence before making key decisions, or he will continue to look like a clown when the truth comes out. A day before he was suspended Katholo had told the Public Accounts Committee that Tymon Katholo that DCEC was investigating P600 million worth of corruption cases all of which had happened in a space of eleven months. It is not clear how DCEC had reached the P600 million figure. But what I can tell you is that this was by all accounts a very conservative figure.
By far a bigger proportion of that figure can be traced to the water projects, that are managed by the same ministry where Ms Khumotaka resigned on Wednesday morning. We still have patriotic people in government and the public service that put their country first. Tymon Katholo and Ms Khumotaka are just two examples of that. Based on Ms Khumotaka’s resignation, Masisi will most likely face internal and popular revolt that will seek his ouster. We cannot have a president who so actively eschews accountability. Under Masisi all the seeds of national security destabilization are in place. Masisi cannot go on forever without a clear plan to address socio economic conditions of widespread unemployment, poverty and corruption. He must address these ills with the same vigour he fought covid 19, treating them like an emergency for they really are. Masisi wants to be portrayed as much more different from Khama. But the two have more similarities than differences. Ski had a soft spot for corruption and corrupt people. So too is Masisi. The suspension of Katholo will forever be looked at as a flashpoint on the Masisi presidency. Katholo suspension has laid bare Masisi’s real public attitude towards corruption and corrupt people.
But that is beside the point. Masisi approach is to keep Batswana forever living on hope that he will one day start governing the way he speaks. That approach is not working. DCEC is one of the few public institutions created to hold public officials accountable. It is a chapter 9 institution. And for it to live up to its mandate it needs political will. This political will means demonstrable transparency and penchant for accountability. More crucially these institutions need a president who is himself never willing to use his executive powers to stand on their way to carry out their duties. Former president Festus Mogae resisted all pressure put on him to shield his close friend Louis Nchindo from a DCEC investigation. Ultimately Nchindo was charged, tried and found guilty. To his credit former president SKI Khama also resisted attempts and calls on him to intervene on the side of his cousin and cabinet minister, the late Ndelu Seretse.
In the end minister Seretse was charged, went through all the legal processes and was discharged and acquitted by the courts. SKI Khama also allowed his finance minister Ken Matambo to go through the legal processes. He too was in the end discharged and acquitted. By suspending Katholo based on a lie Masisi has failed a test to submit himself and his officials to a due process of accountability. The nation has watched in aghast as senior government officials stonewalled court rulings. More embarrassing is the fact that there has been a break in at DCEC office where dockets of investigations against government senior officials were stolen. There is no prize for guessing who broke in and stole those documents. Yet the president has seen nothing wrong protecting these officials from public scrutiny including shielding them from being held accountable for their possible crimes. There’s no doubt that the president’s actions at DCEC have damaged and eroded public trust on his government.
He has not lived up to the standards that he set up for himself. He has invited against himself charges and speculation of ethical impropriety that could easily have been avoided. Katholo suspension was a watershed moment in the history of the DCEC. But it has also been a turning point in the Masisi presidency. The president needs to stem the tide. He knows what he needs to do to achieve that. He needs to call time on nocturnal meetings of senior officials that continue to ransack and loot using government tenders and water contracts Or else he and his government will continue to know no amity.
