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Government officials are following the Employment Act to the letter. Curiously deserving citizen pilots in the tourism industry are being passed over for the few cockpit jobs which are snatched by their white expatriate counterparts. And that is supposed to be the whole point: The whole system has been rigged.
The Ministry of Employment is unwittingly taking jobs from citizen pilots in the tourism industry and passing them on to white expatriate counterparts in what is believed to be an intricate apartheid-style job reservation.
Sunday Standard investigations have turned up an elaborate Employment Act “ white washing” scheme involving the industry high command and their fixers who leverage connections in the ministry to employ expatriates for skills that are available in the local job market.
The Department of Labour under the Ministry ofEmployment Labour Productivity and Skills Development has confirmed that it continues to issue work permits to expatriate pilots despite the pool of at least 100 unemployed Batswana pilots.
The Ministry of Employment, Labour Productivity and Skills Development told Sunday Standard that they issue work permits to expatriate pilots in accordance with the Immigration Act CAP 25:02.
“The Act provides for Regional Immigrants Selection Boards (RISB) that are appointed by the Minister and are the ones mandated with the issuance of work permits,” the Ministry says.
“In line with the Government Policy, whenever an Air Operator intends to employ a non-citizen, the application should be supported by Civil Aviation Authority of Botswana (CAAB). Where CAAB does not support an application, such application is rejected by the Board.”
Sunday Standard investigations have however turned up information suggesting that “white privilege” has flipped Botswana’s Employment Act script by presenting white expatriate employees as more competent than black colleagues.
Defending an apparent racial management hierarchy where white pilots lord it over their black counterparts, Wilderness Safaris fell back on the expatriates – are – better-than-locals song and dance: “ Our three instructors are expatriates with ample instructional experience under approved flight training institutions prior to joining Wilderness Air.”
Another charter company Mack Air stopped short of saying Batswana pilots are not fit to fly their Cessna C208EX Grand Caravans which have the 800 hour minimum requirements. This is being dismissed by local pilots.
The company claimed that, “Mack Air prioritizes the hiring of Batswana applicants over expatriates however, this can be very difficult as 17 of the 20 aircraft in my fleet are the Cessna C208EX Grand Caravans which have the 800 hour minimum requirements. Furthermore Mack Air is committed to the development of Botswana Citizens as a registered HRDC company,” says Keith Simmonds, Operations Manager.
The company says it currently employs seven (7) active expatriate Line Pilots and 17 Batswana Line Pilots. “Mack Air have already employed two expatriates for senior pilot positions this year and are currently applying for work permits with the intention to hire a further three.
“We have also employed six Batswana Pilots thus far and one of which is entering into our Batswana only co-pilot position to operate in Kasane for our scheduled flights to Victoria Falls,” Simmonds says. “This position allows us to hire a Junior Motswana Pilot to enter directly onto our C208EX Grand Caravan fleet without having the 800 minimum flight hours required by insurance to operate the aircraft.”
He says Batswana pilots naturally progress through the company ranks should they choose to stay with Mack Air. “However, the majority choose to continue their careers with other companies such as Debswana, Air Botswana or Kalahari Air in order to fly larger higher paying aircraft.”
A citizen source within the tourism charter industry however told Sunday Standard that, “we have seen situations where top management of these charter companies force Batswana junior pilots to sign prepared letters addressed to the Department of Labour to convince them to give expats work permits for vacant positions within the companies. Most of these letters state that an expat is needed within the company to bring skills and knowledge to train Batswana junior pilots, yet within these companies there are qualified Batswana pilots who hold Designated Pilot Examiners Certificates, Instructor’s rating and even qualify to be Check Pilots, and all these are requirements for training junior pilots,” the disgruntled pilots have said.
The companies (names withheld) reportedly employ the services of a ‘well connected’ fixer (name withheld) to secure them work permits from the Department of Labour. Some of the expatriates work without permits.
The tourism industry jobs whitewashing is believed to be driven by the industry’s endemic racism. The organisational and management culture of local tourism companies has been infused with racial prejudice. Racism is illegal in Botswana but black labour in the white owned Botswana tourism industry experience at best informal or subtle forms of racism and have to fight “white privilege”. White employees are automatically seen as more competent than black colleagues, who have to perform much better to receive equal recognition.
Botswana’s biggest tour operator, Wilderness Safaris, for example has had its fair share of racism scandals.
The Eco-tourism company was accused of racial abuse following a leaked 2019 video showing a white South African senior manager physically assaulting a black citizen colleague.
The controversy caught a second wind last year when a group of “concerned” Batswana marshalled testimonies of systemic racism and mobilised an online petition against the company.
The concerned group, led by one Setlhomo Stizzy used the petition to call out The Rise Fund on the apparent impact washing. The Rise Fund is a Texas based global investment fund committed to impact investment i.e., achieving measurable social, environmental and governance outcomes alongside competitive financial returns. Impact washing on the other hand is the legally actionable overstatement of the commitment to social, environmental and governance propriety.
The petition compiled by “concerned” Batswana claimed that Wilderness was exploiting Batswana workers, paying them less than their white counterparts, systemic racism and worse.
In 2020 Management at Wilderness Safaris Botswana was again accused of protecting an abusive expatriate manager at the expense of his victim, a Motswana junior staffer working at one of the company’s luxury safari camps, Mombo Camp.
The executive chef, another white South African expatriate, was reported to the company’s senior management for abusing his understudy.
A senior employee from the company who was not happy with the handling of the case told Sunday Standard the understudy was physically and verbally abused by his senior.
“The manager is still employed and it looks like he is being protected by the senior management of Wilderness Safaris Botswana while the junior staff member has continued to be victimized and is set to be relocated to a different camp,” Sunday Standard was told at the time.
Abuse of citizen staff within Wilderness Safaris luxury camps is reportedly rampant because the employees do not have a collective voice.
“A lot is being swept under the carpet,” Sunday Standard has been informed. “Expatriate employees receive better treatment.”
Wilderness Safaris Botswana called the 2020 incident a confidential internal HR matter. “We are confident that we handled it quickly, seriously and in accordance with our internal HR processes,” they said at the time.
“Wilderness Safaris is deeply committed to the welfare of its internal community and addresses all staff issues with the utmost importance. We take all grievances related to behaviour very seriously and address all staff matters as a priority,” the company said.
The company has also come under fire from citizen employees over their treatment since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic.
The company is accused of keeping expatriates at the camps while sending locals home. The employees complained that their expatriate colleagues also received a higher percentage of their monthly salary than their citizen colleagues.
But Managing Director Nixon dismissed the complaints. “There is no favouritism,” he told Sunday Standard .
“Note that about 90 percent of our staff are locals so when we do send people back home a great majority are bound to be locals,” Nixon explained.
“We only send citizens away because they have alternative homes here in Botswana. It’s difficult to send an expatriate home temporarily during this difficult period of international movement restrictions.”
Nixon said in relation to disparities in percentage remuneration they pay employees according the number of working ours they have to put in. Those who have been sent home are of course not getting paid as much as the skeletal staff, he said, adding that even the skeletal staff are paid according to the hours they are required to put in.
“When this whole coronavirus issue is behind us, we intend by all means to retain our entire staff compliment and we can only achieve that by sticking to the measures we put in place to mitigate the difficult period we are currently facing as a business.
The hospitality industry returns to full operation this year following two years of Covid-19 restrictions on trans-border movement. Charter airlines are recruiting more pilots in preparation for the busy season but unemployed local pilots are not rubbing their hands in glee. Most of the vacant positions are already reserved for expatriates.
Sunday Standard has established that charter companies in Maun, only advertise senior pilot positions as a mere formality, with predetermined candidates already in place to start work.
These loopholes in the tourism air charter industry are feeding the industry’s racist corporate culture.
Black pilots who are stuck in the cockpit and other less influential positions with pitiful pay as they continue to be passed over for promotion in favour of white South African expatriates have spoken out against the industry’s “institutionalized racism.”
Sunday Standard investigations have established that one company is in the process of employing at least five white expatriate pilots while another has lined up four expatriate pilots for their vacant positions. Sometimes the expat pilots alternate between the charter companies.
“Looking at the requirements in the advertisement, a lot of Batswana pilots qualify and have applied for these positions,” some of the local pilots have told Sunday Standard, “but the fact remains that the vacant positions advertised were just a formality to make it seem legit while we all know as local pilots that those jobs are reserved for expatiates.”
Sunday Standard has also established how white expatriate pilots continue to progress to management positions over experienced local Batswana pilots. The systemic racism allegedly extends to remunerations.
“We continue to experience huge salary differences between expats and local pilots, and unfair dismissals of Batswana pilots who should be understudying for management positions as per the Botswana localization program. Most of these foreign managers favour their expat pilot friends over qualified Batswana pilots.”
Wilderness Air, a subsidiary of Okavango Wilderness Safaris, has denied the accusations of bias towards expatriates.
“Our recruitment process is vigorous,” they say. “Safety, experience and qualifications are paramount. Recruitment is based on ensuring the most experienced and qualified for the role are prioritized in line with local labour and aviation regulations, our own standards of excellence, and international best practice. We also take an inclusive and equal opportunity approach; where we are able to recruit local pilots, especially from communities around us.”
The company says they currently have a total of 13 pilots. Four of these are expatriates, they say, while nine are Batswana. “Notably, they are young Batswana, including women. We’re pleased to see this shift increasingly move with time to more Batswana employed in the sector, for we have incredible talent in this space. To put this into perspective, just 5 years ago, our ratio of expatriate pilots to local pilots was 17:8, and 10 years ago, 16:3. This is a clear indication of our intent to see more Batswana pilots,” says Kago Paul, Wilderness Air Botswana General Manager.
Wilderness Air Botswana say they are in the process of recruiting crew and offers have been made to a number of suitably qualified candidates following what they call a rigorous assessment and interview process. It is not yet clear how many of these offers will be accepted, the company says.
But why does Wilderness Air Botswana continue to engage foreign pilots as in house instructors and Designated Pilot Examiners while there are qualified Batswana instructors and DPEs within the company?
“Due to the hazardous nature of flight training, instructors are chosen based on experience, in line with flight training policy. Our three instructors are expatriates with ample instructional experience under approved flight training institutions prior to joining Wilderness Air. We have two local pilots who are qualified as instructors; however, they both do not have the above-mentioned instructional experience, yet.”
