Public servants must respect customers

Enole Ditsheko | Monday September 15, 2025 13:12

Addressing members of the Fourth Estate, then newly elected President of the Republic of Botswana, Duma Boko, on November 4, made a promise about the public service he was inheriting from the previous administration. “We are going to run an agile government,” he volunteered this detail to news scribes in the garden of the Ministry of State President.

A weak private sector has meant that, over the six decades of our existence, we have been a public service-driven economy, employing the majority of our citizens' workforce. The greatest benefit that has turned out to be a curse on the end-customer is the job security that public servants have. Even with changes introduced after 2008 to place senior public servants on fixed contracts, nothing has changed the comfort level they enjoy compared to their counterparts employed in the private sector. Therefore, any reforms to bring agility in one shape or form to the public service would always be sweet music to our ears.

Agility implies moving with swift speed and high efficiency in providing needed service. Many who are skeptical have asked the question, How was this possible if the new administration was inheriting the same people and retaining them in those roles? With re-engineered processes that transformed the mindset of public servants, this was not an uphill battle for the new government. This promissory note is still relevant and necessary. The starting point is to do away with the noun public officers and ingrain in everyone’s mind that they are public servants. The emphasis on servitude is critical because they must know that the masters and lords are the customers, not them moving their bodies on swivel chairs and twiddling their fingers, while denigrating the taxpayers sitting across them. However, members of the public who interact with government employees continue to experience pain, frustration, and anguish due to the massive powers entrusted in their hands. Batswana still travel thousands of kilometres to the capital to receive services that they would have accessed in their locality if there were decentralisation of power. Moreover, a majority of our citizens are helpless whenever they go to see public servants. Public servants lord over their customers and trample on them like they were insects. They enjoy meeting customers who are not aware of their rights to demand service, when all courtesy and humility have been exploited to the advantage of the public servants. The Department of Civil and National Registration is one where officers are a law unto themselves. In the past, Omang scams littered the media reports, where officers received bribes in exchange for the issuance of the most important document that must be safeguarded. When public officers derive pleasure from frustrating the taxpayers who fund their salaries, we should not be surprised when, at the national level, there is no development to show for this widespread attitude. It requires ethical officers, who discharge their daily duties within the parameters of what is prescribed; men and women capable of detaching their sentimentality from those they deem their friends or foes. I beam light on the unit within this department called the Registrar of Societies. It was established in recent years through an Act of Parliament, and the registrar is a statutory appointment. Since its inception, Ofentse Gojamang has headed it. My experience with this woman is that she is unfit for this powerful position for many reasons.

Mainly, she is an individual who is unable to rise above pettiness, and if she convinces herself that she should hound you over anything that she might not articulate, she abuses the power of her office to unleash her meanness. I hear Gojamang is poised to become the department’s director when her acting appointment is over. This sounds to me like a death knell where an already ailing department that has not given the citizens value for their money in the past decade is mentioned, especially on the side of registered societies. She keeps a blind eye on rogue societies as long as her buddies lead them, for example, the Promised Land of Christian Churches Association (PLOCCA), whose patron is Mookami Tebogo Philemon Motlhagodi. This splinter group from the Organisation of the African Instituted Churches (OAIC) was dubiously registered in 2023. To date, it has not reported its financials to the registrar because it has never re-registered. But it is not one on her radar, and she recognises it as if it were a properly constituted society under the Societies’ Act of 2022, simply because of the affinity she shares with its founder and patron. To the contrary, she can hound a compliant society like New Temple of the New Jerusalem over flimsy, unexplainable demands for additional information by grossly misapplying section 13 of the Societies’ Act 2022 as if we were being assessed for re-registration when we submitted to her all the evidence listed in her requirements to fulfil the annual return to be issued with a renewal certificate. Since August 8th, we have been chasing after a renewal certificate, and she was hellbent on exhausting our endurance to embolden her to misuse the power to remove us from the register of societies that are compliant.

The New Temple of the New Jerusalem was duly registered on 25 November 2009, and I have been the founding bishop. Its constitution, which is the contract defining the relationship with the registrar of societies, compels it to conduct its annual conference in July. I wrote this framework, and, therefore, can attest to the truth that I know every line like the back of my hand. An originalist interpretation requires the framer of the document to explain what he envisioned, and therefore, it is I that the registrar must seek direction from, not the other way round. The textualist interpretation forces us to read and understand the words in the way they have been arranged to mean exactly what is in front of our eyes. Therefore, when the constitution states that the conference shall be held in July, it means the period from 1st to 31 July; we must congregate for this annual meeting per Article 8.2. Moreover, Article 8.7 enumerates what must be discussed at the annual conference. That includes financial reports (bank statement that corresponds with the treasurer’s report) from the previous 12 months to the date of the meeting. If the annual conference coincides with the expiration of the executive committee’s term, there must be elections conducted, ushering in the new administrators. The constitution is bold under Article 11.3 that the financial year runs from 1 July of the current year to 30 June of the following year.

As indicated in the earlier paragraph, the agreement we entered with the registrar is that each year, we are bound to report on our financials from the previous 12 months. This has become more important than ever after the Societies’ Act 2022 came into full force to address anti-money laundering activities. Submitting reports to the office of the registrar on an annual basis is non-negotiable where I am concerned in my headship role of the society registered under her authority. It is done in line with the stated requirements from her office, which cannot be confused with anything else. Thus, on 26 July 2025, the church conducted its annual conference in Gaborone. The last executive committee elections were in 2022. With the clear direction found in Article 9.1 that the executive committee shall hold office for three years, and fresh elections be held to begin another term, the church upheld its constitution and conducted elections during the 26 July 2025 conference. Under the Societies’ Act 2022, office bearers are vetted and must be granted security clearance once they are fingerprinted. Thankfully, none of the elected officials administering the church had any criminal record, and the results of their fingerprints have been duly submitted alongside all the stipulated requirements from the registrar’s office. Together with “Form F” that lists the former administrators, and “Form D” detailing the particulars of the freshly elected office bearers, financial reports and proof of payment to the revenue office were all turned in on 8 August 2025 for the swift issuance of the renewal certificate. The submission was the beginning of our sorrows and lamentations. The registrar has never ceased to demand information that is not listed as a requirement, which we followed.

The renewal certificate is not only important to our legal status, rather without it, the operations of the church are also paralysed. The external stakeholders we transact business with need proof that we are registered. We cannot access the church funds because bank account signatories are no longer the same individuals after the elections. The registrar rejected the submission under the pretext that we should turn in the attendance sheet and minutes from the 26 July 2025 conference. That was the stalemate. How on earth do we give the registrar proceedings from a meeting that occurred after the end of the reporting period of 30 June, whilst we are fulfilling her requirement to report on the past 12 months? Extracting from the proceedings of 26 July 2025 to make a report that covers the past 12 months, as her requirements boldly state, would not only be a contradiction to her list but an amendment to our constitution, which she bears no duty to alter because she is not a member of the registered church. When it became apparent that we reached a deadlock in the understanding of what period must be included in the reports submitted to her attention, the registrar advised that we must amend “Form F” by entering the 6 July 2024 date, which is when we congregated in Kazungula for the same purpose 12 months prior. We grudgingly obliged. Still, there was no renewal of the certificate. The registrar came up with a different beat, and this time, she rejected the treasurer’s report because it bears a semblance of a meeting that happened in Gaborone on 26 July 2025, while its content covers the past 12-month period. When informed that the report was delivered on the floor of the 2025 conference, which adopted, approved, and ratified it as the norm, the registrar remained rigid. She reasoned that there was dissonance with the attendance sheet showing 6 July 2024. Her representative, one Edward Gabotswegope, is a rigid and petty public servant. However, the registrar who accepted the bank statement covering the same period did not raise an issue with the date of 25 July 2025 that appears on it, because she understands that it was when the bank printed and released the statement to the customer. Yet she has an issue understanding the appearance of 26 July 2025 on the treasurer’s report that speaks to the same statement? Rather, the treasurer’s report must be pre-dated 6 July 2024, according to her, as if it was accepted, adopted, approved and ratified by that conference. When we stood our ground against her unreasonable demands, the registrar flexed her muscle and authored an order dated 22 August 2025 through another representative, Aubrey Kono, demanding additional information.

This broke the camel’s back, and I boarded Delta Airlines from St. Louis to Botswana. Since 1 September, I have been a camper at this department, engaging with anyone, including the permanent secretary and Honourable Minister. The wanton abuse of customers by public servants must not continue under this new government. The attitude that public servants are lords must cease. If someone as privileged as I can suffer this long before accessing service, I cry for an ordinary citizen. What about one who is not aware of his rights, does not have resources to spend endless time arguing on the phone, cannot afford a trip to Gaborone, needless to mention, being listened to by the permanent secretary and/or honourable Minister? Is this how we desire our people to be assisted? This is appalling behaviour by public servants.