The Directorate on Corruption and Economic Crime (DCEC) has been called on to institute investigations into allegations that a number of junior female employees at the National Aids Coordinating Agency (NACA) have been unduly promoted in return for sexual favours to their supervisors.
Employees at the Agency said that the dream to achieve zero new HIV infections is far-fetched if the management embarks on hiring incompetent individuals just because they are relatives or come from same tribe and promote inexperienced junior females in return for sexual favours.
Some NACA staff who made contact with The Telegraph this week, called on the DCEC to investigate the hiring process and promotions at NACA.
According to the concerned staff, two managers are hiring and promoting junior females in return for sexual favours. The managers are said to be law unto themselves as they continue with their misconduct under the newly appointed NACA Coordinator Grace Muzila.
“Maybe it’s because she is a woman, she dances to every tune they play. When Muzila came in we had hopes that the situation would be normalised. She asked for our suggestions and we wrote almost everything that bothered us but she never acted on our grievances,” said one of the officers.
The officers demand explanations on whether NACA is not run like any other government agency. They want to know the procedures that are there when one is promoted at their organisation which apparently seems to be different from other government departments.
“We are saying this because just last year a female intern arrived here, four months down the line she was hired working at corporate services. She has been promoted several times just because she is linked to a politician that belongs to a certain tribe that rules NACA. We had interns before, they did their two year term and were kicked out. What is so special about this particular intern who does only six months and gets a job?” wondered the officers.
Citing another incident the staff said there is one officer who was coming from local government in 2009 on a C2 scale and was hired on a D2 scale. “She has been given a big role at the Prevention Department. She was promoted yet again to D1 in December 2013 just because she has a close relationship with one of the two managers,” one of the officers explained. The staff said NACA is doing nothing but gambling with the lives of Batswana. “We cannot have a situation whereby individuals hired do not qualify for positions. They are just there because they have been placed there. Do we expect NACA to carry its mandate when it is run by incompetent people?” asked the officers. They said they had a meeting recently where the management was updating them on the promotions. They said they questioned the criteria used for promotions but they never got answers.
“This is the reason why HIV is invading us. It is invading us because incompetent people are holding positions and they are clueless of what they are doing. AIDS is going to kill us as Batswana because NACA is not implementing its mandate,” said one disgruntled staff member.
Muzila acknowledged asking for suggestions from NACA staff but was not in a position to respond to The Telegraph questions because she was Palapye. She requested questions to be emailed to her and said she can only respond to them when she gets back to Gaborone sometime this week.
