One morning, and with no fore warning, Brigadier Joseph Mathambo who had been working as Director General at the DCEC (Directorate on Corruption and Economic Crime) was gone.
Mathambo was taking over from Bruno Paledi, a career police officer who found himself at DCEC for reasons that were to put it mildly, totally political.
Coming in at the tail end of Ian Khama administration, Paledi was very clearly put there as a kind of a bouncer – a kind of gate keeper who could control events in case the incoming administration had other ideas.
And indeed for the duration of his stay at DCEC, which was not long, Paledi acted as guarantor of immunity of key architects of the Khama administration against intruding ambitions of the incoming one.
Not without reason, Paledi, it must be pointed out was deeply loathed by the incoming administration so much that his failure and eventual ouster were guaranteed.
Before Paledi there had been Rose Seretse. She served for most of the time during the Ian Khama administration.
It was during this time that the DCEC investigated Isaac Kgosi, the all too powerful Director General of the DIS at the time.
In the end Kgosi prevailed, highlighting the inherent and structural weaknesses in the DCEC.
All these point to the importance of having a legally protected security of tenure for the head of DCEC.
An example of that exists with director of public prosecutions, the Attorney General and also with Judges.
Nobody can just wake up one morning and decide to remove those officials.
As a general rule, before removing them, there has to be a process. That process requires at the very least a veneer of transparency and some explaining to do.
Of course, there is always room to circumvent these as it recently happened with three High Court judges who were mysteriously retired. But still that is melts away when compared to the glaring nature politicians have been playing politics with DCEC.
When president Mokgweetsi Masisi came in he promised that his administration would be wedded to the rule of law.
He has ben in power for three years now. And has seen three Director Generals at DCEC.
That leads us to question the scrutiny that goes into hiring these people. And also once hired are they allowed room to independently carry out their mandate.
Today the head of the DCEC is Tymon Katholo – an honest and immense professional and effective public servant.
He has been called back from retirement to come and get a second bite at the cherry.
During his first tenure, Katholo was able to investigate Ian Khama and his brothers and compile a very strong and incriminating dossier against them. In the dossier, Isaack Kgosi was not too far away.
Khama was vice president at the time and Festus Mogae was president.
Mogae was a true liberal whose attachment to the rule of law was instinctive rather than an abstract soundbite.
Will Katholo be able under today’s administration to be able to compile such a similar dossier against a sitting Vice president or president for that matter and not be worried about losing his job?
Will he find himself in a position where he constantly had to be looking over his own shoulder.
Khama as we all know was a very powerful and security-minded vice president who was allowed extensive room to do as he pleased.
Katholo’s hand today is not as strong as it was in his first round as Director General.
What has ben happening to DCEC sends a chilling effect to anybody appointed to head that important institution.
President Mokgweetsi Masisi has lately been talking reform and reset.
He should first reform the DCEC and make sure that it is put on a reset pedestal.
The DCEC should practical be able to investigate the president, the vice president and the permanent secretary to the president without worrying that its Director General will be summarily removed as it happened with Joseph Mathambo and Bruno Paledi.
The whole history of DCEC is being reduced to a mockery.
Since its formation in the 1990s, the very existence of the DCEC has never been more at doubt like today. Ironically this is an era where most had expected the DCEC to thrive and operate freer than ever before.
Katholo himself risks reducing himself to a clown in the eyes of the public if he continues to hold out that he is free to investigate anybody.
If that is so, the tenure of the DCEC director general should be explicitly protected by law. We can no longer rely on a future where a Mogae-like president could one day come by.
