MONTY CHIEPE, Geoflux Executive Chairman who has been investigating Debswana’s apparent tendering irregularities speaks of fraud, misinformation campaigns and cover-ups.
This write-up is a response to a front-page article in The Sunday Standard of January 14-20, 2007, titled “Tender blunders mar Debswana P6 billion Project.” It was never our intention to air this matter publicly, particularly in this context. However, it has now appeared publicly. Its content warrants a response, which I hereby give.
The said article is an obvious product of planted misinformation for sensational public consumption and the indigestive consumption of stakeholders to divert attention from where it is relevant and needed most.
First, let me clarify a few things: I am not a shareholder in any of the companies involved.
Mokenti Raborokgwe has never been a “partner” in Geoflux, but a Director.
Bateman Projects (Pty) Ltd is not a breakaway from Geoflux. It is a 100% subsidiary of Bateman (international).
Mokenti Raborokgwe, unless as a recent development, is not a shareholder in Bateman Projects is but its Country Manager.
The article refers to me and Mokenti Raborokgwe as being at the centre of a tender controversy. If my actions in this matter constitute being at the “centre of a controversy”, then I certainly do not know what “controversy” means. Crimes are crimes and corporate governance and policies governing the operation of an entity such as Debswana should be very clear. There are no opposing opinions, as implied in controversy, when it comes to such straightforward matters. To label the investigator controversial or to shoot the messenger for such basic principles is characteristic of an environment desperate to cover up.
Geoflux, on its behalf and Bateman Botswana, has placed its case before Debswana. Geoflux does not call what transpired “blunders”.
There was never a promise by Makwinja to award the project to “Chiepe’s company”. What Chiepe’s company? All my discussions with Makwinja were for purposes of validation and due process in my investigations and foiling of fraud and the disenfranchisement of Geoflux on contracts not tenders.
Yes M. Raborokgwe and L. Makwinja are indeed friends; but I would not use this as a basis for querying a decision as friendships can also be governed by principle.
For context, I divested from and left Geoflux at the end of December 2004, after being at its helm since its inception in 1989. Geoflux and other companies in the group or those related to Geoflux were left in the hands of five (5) principals (C. Marobela, M. Mogopa, J. Mphake, M. Raborokgwe and O. Kgengwenyane) on their behalf and others junior to them to take them through a process of further broadening of shareholding and continuing the mandates of the companies.
In September 2005, I was asked by the five principals to assist the group with various urgent pressures. The group was unbundled and the principals, by their own choices, took separate leadership of the three companies. Mokenti Raborokgwe and Oabona Kgengwenyane, with one other management staff in X-Pert Group Botswana, bought X-Pert Group Botswana from Geoflux. Chilisana Marobela took ownership and leadership of Thakadu Drilling (Pty) Ltd, and Jay Mphake and Michael Mogopa, with five others, took ownership and leadership of Geoflux. Geoflux also had a 32 percent stake in Bateman Botswana together with Bateman Projects (51 percent) and Bothakga Burrow (17 percent).
Thereafter, Geoflux chose to enlist my services as Executive Chairman to particularly focus on the business environment issues and growth strategies. Marobela utilised my services briefly till he chose to wind down Thakadu Drilling operations. I also continued to see through the agreements and understanding between the parties involved.
Following my disembarkment, it also transpired on my being recalled, that Mokenti Raborokgwe had taken employment at the Bateman (International) subsidiary as Country Manager instead of at the joint venture company as was the understanding of the principals. Kgengwenyane and Raborokgwe, also as part of the unbundling, offered to put together a proposal to Geoflux for the purchase of part of its stake in Bateman Botswana, but never returned to see it through.
After I had acclimatized to issues at hand, it became apparent that Geoflux was being marginalized to the extent of disenfranchisement in the Bateman Botswana contracts with Debswana. In pursuing this, it became necessary to reconcile information from Bateman Projects (which was denied) and Debswana.
It became clear with continuing investigations that the J.V partners were not cooperating and being honest with Geoflux. It further transpired that there was disenfranchisement of Geoflux, fraud perpetrated to deny Geoflux its participation and dues as well as abuse of office, at the very least, in Debswana.
The investigative process also required obtaining accountability by each individual for their role in the matter versus the mandate of the institutions that employed them. This pertained to joint venture partners as well as Debswana employees.
After 12 months of relentless and focused pursuit of the matter and the culprits, the net closed in on the sharks and the said article is a desperate attempt to free them.
The facts of the issues at hand are:
Mokenti Raborokgwe, on his behalf and/or those he represents, committed fraud,
Arthur Siwawa, on his behalf or those he represents facilitated certain unlawful acts perpetrated by Mokenti Raborokgwe and others, and also breached his fiduciary duty toward Bateman Botswana.
Leonard Makwinja abused his position to directly or indirectly aid Mokenti Raborokgwe to complete the fraud process and disenfranchise Geoflux of its interests in Bateman Botswana.
Mokenti Raborokgwe and Oabona Kgengwenyane worked in concert to place their one or several companies to benefit through Bateman Projects where the fraudulent diversion of contracts and revenue of Bateman Botswana were re-directed. Mokenti Raborokgwe used his position as Country Manager of Bateman Projects, the 100 percent subsidiary of Bateman, to advance this agenda.
Employees of Bateman Projects and one of Bothakga Burrow colluded to divert Bateman Botswana contracts (where Geoflux is a shareholder with them) to Bateman Projects with the facilitation of some Debswana employees. There after, there was an attempt by them (J.V partners excluding Geoflux) to close down the “purportedly project-defunct” Bateman Botswana. Geoflux foiled this. This act was done mid-stream of a project and contract without due regard to risk exposure to Debswana.
Debswana has not yet received the fraudulently obtained funds from Bateman Projects amounting to P4.6 Million, despite what Mr J. Matome is quoted as having said.
The conduct of certain Debswana employees, individually or collectively, has placed Debswana in an extremely compromised position:
Fraudulent transactions have had to be reversed
A contract intended for Bateman Botswana with all its documentation was unlawfully signed with Bateman Projects instead of Bateman Botswana and remains an issue to be resolved.
What remains to be answered or established is whether or not:
Mokenti Raborokgwe committed the fraud on his volition or on the mandate of his employer, Bateman Projects.
ii) Arthur Siwawa facilitated the unlawful acts perpetrated by Mokenti Raborokgwe of his volition or the mandate of Bothakga Burrow.
L. Makwinja acted of his volition or on the mandate of Debswana.
Bateman (International) allows its employees, as in Mokenti Raborokgwe, to have their own companies subcontracted to it and under their management portfolio.
Debswana interviewees in the article, if properly quoted, seemed to make light of a very serious matter. While Geoflux may have given Debswana the opportunity to do the right and honourable thing and rectify their “mistakes”, it must be noted that we have placed it on record that we consider it to be an outcome of fraud, as it rightly is. We further differentiate mistakes from deliberate acts: mistakes are acknowledged and corrected, while deliberate acts are defended, hopefully, honestly. For some Debswana officials to reduce the gravity of a matter of abuse of office, aiding and abetting criminal conduct and corruption to a proudly admitted lesser ill of gross negligence or incompetence by labeling it a “blunder” is inexcusable at this level. To further clutch onto the matter of none-registration and shareholders agreements was also the contrived justification used to advance an agenda. The application of this as a policy has no procedural regularity or consistency in the Debswana practice of procurement nor does it have legal basis for how it was applied. It is part of the innumerable double standards applied to different companies at different times in the procurement system. This practice works well for the culture as it keeps aspiring service providers/suppliers, particularly citizens, as repeat victims of policy applications randomly pulled out of a hat to suit the whims and personal interests of the officer(s) involved.
We strongly believe that the timing and flavour of the article are craftily designed to place focus elsewhere, particularly as the pending matter of the placing of the Orapa No 3 contract on the wrong party. And the way it was done by Mr Makwinja has left the executive management of Debswana apparently devoid of a solution to the entanglement that Makwinja, as a senior colleague, has placed Debswana with respect to Bateman Botswana and Bateman Projects. A conflict resolution framework and high moral ground solution is evading those handling the matter and the usual outcome is to create a red herring, as in my name, and the company I represent. Further, a flavour is thrown in to smirk of wheeling and dealing, feuds, aggrandizement and suggests instability within Geoflux. This is being done in order to attempt to discredit and pander to the cheapest public emotions and in the process blurring the real points and issues Debswana nees to seriously address.
Geoflux is mature enough as a company to handle its partnership issues; but when Debswana is a key player in engineering the discord, disenfranchising Geoflux and facilitating crimes is where Geoflux takes issue with Debswana – more so with the indifference with which some of the relevant Debswana managers approach the plight of a citizen company with no due recognition or sensitivity to the implications on its operations and its genuine efforts made to rise to the highest level of corporate development and accountability in our ailing environment.
For the relevant Debswana managers to not heed Geoflux’s plea for focusing on how joint ventures are being conducted with citizens is a remarkable indictment on Debswana’s citizen empowerment programs. The behaviour of foreign companies, let alone citizen companies, doing business with Debswana is pretty much guided by the cue they receive from Debswana. For Debswana to be made to appear disinterested in clear disenfranchisement of a citizen company in contracts which are secured under the guise or pretext of capacity building and citizen empowerment and then Debswana itself, facilitate the disenfranchisement of the citizen company is alarmingly unbecoming of an institution of the stature of Debswana.
In these contracts, hard as they may fight, citizen companies always receive a pittance and get nominal or token professional participation since the attitude of the foreign companies is, more often than not, calibrated to the Debswana environment. Hence, in our view, it is simplistic to reduce a well-enunciated disquiet of a citizen company to a “shareholder issue”. In the said projects, it is important to note that for the Damtshaa Project income of P70million, Geoflux only participated to the tune of about P800 000. For the MTPR Pre-feasibility Project with income of P5.1 million together with the Orapa No 3 Phase 1, (whose cost was deliberately kept away from Geoflux by both Bateman Projects and Debswana by signing the contract with only Bateman Projects), Geoflux was a victim of an orchestrated disenfranchisement and fraud involving Debswana that was intended to yield zero income for Geoflux.
The public is now being given the impression of Geoflux being a major player in the P6 billion projects.
In fact, for Geoflux, this is a long and arduous road with Debswana that goes back to 1992. The paper trail of our complaints gathers dust in the halls of Debswana. All previous complaints and subsequent enquiries/audits always came to naught and were used primarily for formulating a cover up after seemingly having gone through a “legitimate audit”.
If there is one single institution that has disempowered Geoflux, it is Debswana: About ten (10) Geoflux staff members have been poached by Debswana on Project assignments to them; contracts are moved mid stream from Geoflux with habitual regularity after being motivated for approval using the name of Geoflux; contracts are secured with sweat and blood and held onto with dear life; yet Geoflux’s name is used in publicity citizen empowerment stunts; Geoflux has invested millions in capacity building that was encouraged by Debswana and never utilised or is poached. Every time Geoflux complains, it is further marginalized; Debswana has never compensated Geoflux for all the grief, trials and tribulations it subjects Geoflux to.
Geoflux, as a trailblazer, pays the price of pioneering and opening bolted steel doors and sticking to the course and, in the process, repeatedly aggravating a culture that resists significant citizen participation and speaks a business language we seemingly fail to comprehend to be in the favour of the officers. Geoflux has long proven its technical competence in various areas to no avail.
The story of Geoflux is a window into the plight of citizen companies. Others, such as G4 Consulting engineers and TTCS, have suffered similar tribulations in past major contracts within Debswana.
Geoflux is the professional home to many dedicated citizens who have a mission to continue to develop a company this country can be proud of. It is one of the most difficult places to stay given the hostility it faces in an ever-decaying environment. The many people whom I and other leaders in the company enlisted to the course and are Geoflux today have stuck with it even during its most difficult times when the company needed them the most. I am playing the role I have been assigned in this matter because they also need me the most at this point in time.
Those Debswana employees, who rise or try to rise to the desired standard and culture are there, but their presence is obscured and drowned in this festering culture which fights tooth and nail to entrench itself together with its network.
For how long can the stakeholders continue to look the other way?
We do trust that the Managing Director of Debswana, whom we have written to for recourse and dealing with this culture, will after the benefit of an audit, comprehensively and decisively address this tragedy in the interest of the company, the shareholders and the country. Debswana, for what it stands for and representing our country and its economy, is too important for the status quo to prevail.
I will stand up to see justice served ÔÇô no matter what. When one chases a get away robbery car, one expects to be shot at. When one challenges an established culture with strong parasitic interests in a corporate giant with enormous resources it, does come with its upheavals and turmoil.
However, I believe enough in the people I represent at Geoflux, and in my country and those countrymen and women who strive to do the right thing for me to have the conviction of purpose and legitimate expectation of justice to be upheld throughout the various institutions and levels in Debswana, government and judicial system as well as in the nation as a whole. This is what I was made to understand my country stands for.
