Siele tells labour officers to turn a new leaf

RYDER GABATHUSE
Staff Writer | Thursday November 20, 2008 00:00

 

Officially opening this year's annual four-day labour officers' conference at the Desert Sands Hotel in Palapye on Monday, Siele said ever since he was appointed to the ministry last April, his office had been inundated with reports that 'labour officers are corrupt and easily bribed'.

Siele cited Parliament and radio phone-in programmes where he featured with the Commissioner of Labour Claude Mojafhe, as some of the forums in which strong views about labour officers being corrupt had been roundly expressed.

Talking to an audience characterised by stony silence, Siele 'abandoned' his written speech to perhaps better drive the point home: 'I am going to abandon my written speech so that I take advantage of this meeting to drive home some of the issues bedevilling this department,' he said.

'I will be grateful if at the end of this meeting you come up with resolutions that help us regain public confidence.'

And the message was this: 'Officers who engage in corrupt practices will be taken to task as they do not deserve a place in our midst.'

So negative were perceptions of the public about the labour department that the same Parliament that had established his Ministry and set up the departments under it had once called the scrapping of the Department of Labour, the minister said.

'I want you to come up with a resolution reflecting clearly what you are doing wrongly which continues to attract negative perceptions for the department from the public and for MPs to even call for the dissolution of this department,' he demanded.

'I have heard even the Palapye chief, Raditanka Ntebele, say in his welcome remarks that in the face of the public, you are bought very cheaply by even a cup of tea by employers. Such are the deeply-rooted perceptions about this department.'

As if in doubt that his message was being received, Siele drove on: 'Just wake up tomorrow morning and look yourselves in the mirror. Just thoroughly check if the allegations against the department are not perpetrated by you as individuals or jointly with some of your colleagues.'

Referring to the biblical story of Noah's Ark, the minister said people had not taken the call of repentance seriously before The Flood.

'Botswana's image has dropped three points due to reported incidents of corruption in which some of you were involved,' he chided.

Siele said while he acknowledged that the work of labour officers was varied and complex, he challenged the officers to be transparent and to perform their duties with diligence.

He was also concerned about the low number of labour inspections due to shortage of officers. 'A lot of companies and businesses have never been inspected due to inadequate resources such as manpower, transport and equipment.'

Speaking at the same retreat, the Commissioner of Labour, Claude Mojafhe, described the meeting as a consultative process that annually brought labour officers and stakeholders together.

He indicated that all the regional offices of Lobatse, Gaborone, Kgalagadi, Selebi-Phikwe, Francistown and Maun attended the meeting.

He encouraged regional officers to use the meeting to take stock of themselves and their daily activities.

Retired labour commissioner, who is now kgosana in Palapye, Klaas Motshidisi, also attended the official opening. Motshidisi said he was available to give advice to anyone who needed it.

He repeated the 'cup of tea' legend of labour officers being available on the cheap, saying the perception went as far back as the time he was a trade unionist in the 1960s.

'When I later became the Commissioner of Labour,' he said, 'I was confronted with such wild allegations that I was bought by some employers to rule cases in favour of them. The best that officers can do is work with due diligence.'