The deafening silence of the Botswana Development Corporation (BDC) board at time that the parastatal has been rocked by one allegation of corruption after the other is very worrisome.
This is the time that the board, endowed with fiduciary powers should have long acted on the allegations to ensure that if by any chance there is any rot within the corporation, it is investigated and stemmed out.
The board cannot stand aloof and behave as if all is well at the Government investment arm when allegations of corruption continue to fly left, right and centre.
We are aware that at the instance of the Board, there is an ongoing forensic audit.
But we want to point out that what has been transpiring at the courts of law basically incriminates the very Board that itself purports to be clean.
Simply put, the board should also shoulder part of the blame in the ensuing saga engulfing the corporation. It definitely has to take the flak because it would ordinarily appear that it is sleeping on the job. Had it not been so, immediately it became apparent that all was not well at the government funded institution, the board should have risen up to the occasion and called for a forensic audit to determine the extent to which public funds have and continued to be looted from the corporation.
We understand why some people are beginning to suspect complicity among some Board members.
A failure by BDC management is a failure by the Board to provide strategic direction and leadership.
The same goes for the Ministry of Finance and Development Planning under whose portfolio the BDC falls, at least until recently.
We are aware that the Minister of Finance and Development Planning Kenneth Matambo is the immediate past BDC chief while his Permanent Secretary Solomon Sekwakwa doubles as BDC board chairperson.
Naturally this arrangement blurs roles. But the underlying fact of the matter is that BDC falls within the ministry and as a shareholder they should call their representatives who is the Board of Directors to account.
The problems at BDC seem to be so serious as to warrant the attention of the Directorate on Corruption and Economic Crime investigators to get to the bottom of what is happening.
We are elated at reports that DCEC has already pounced on some executives of the corporation.
It is important to highlight a few issues that have this year alone dogged BDC’s governance structures: An audit report by G4 Consulting Engineers at the Palapye Fengyue Glass Manufacturing Plant pointed out that the contractor, which also happens to be a partner in the project had been over paid by P100 million.
Why was the contractor overpaid by such a huge amount? What prompted the corporation to overpay the contractor?
In addition the consulting engineers also found out that BDC money amounting to P9 million was illegally diverted to finance an adjacent project at a site not owned by BDC.
How did it happen that the corporation authorized such a huge amount for payment for a project that is not part BDC’s.
There is another serious allegation that one of the corporation’s executive is a shareholder in the said project which is an oxygen making plant. Unless this allegation has been cleared, the public will remain convinced that BDC money, which is public money is being illegally used to finance some people’s personal projects.
Another project assigned BDC by government, the P300 million Innovation Hub, has stalled on the back of court injunctions over the irregular awarding of the quantity surveying as well as civil and structural engineering tenders.
While these matters are sub-judice and subject to court determination, they are nonetheless serious issues that warrant further scrutiny.
We are hopeful that the relevant authorities would act in the interest of the public to ensure that the rot at the corporation stemmed out once and for all.
