Parastatal Boards � What Is The Point?

Sandy Grant | Monday February 17, 2014 16:07

Why, I wonder, did they bother? We are unlikely to hear about these often very distinguished people during their period of tenure – in fact the first we will know that they have gone is when their successor members are announced.

Ten years ago, Jerry Gabaake did a quick check and reckoned then that there were forty-two parastatals in existence. 

We can safely assume that this number has been steadily increased in the intervening years and that today, we may have at least fifty, the latest being the Local Enterprise Authority (LEA) although many may wonder why it needs a Board to which it will, not, of course, be accountable. 

The general understanding seems to be that many if not most of these Boards are doing a very poor job whilst a few, not least, the Meat Commission (BMC), Botswana Railways, Air Botswana, and the Development Corporation are usually regarded as being major disasters.

All these parastatals have had their advisory Boards since they first came into existence. If a parastatal has been doing a poor job, it would seem to follow that its Board has also done a poor job.  But is this so? 

Over the years there must have been some unreported success stories.

Looking back over the years, however, the unavoidable conclusion must be that the Board members who have served their terms with this or that parastatal have been entirely satisfied with their contribution even if the overall record would suggest otherwise. 

The one exception to this depressing norm that I can recollect was the resignation of David Inger and, I think two others from its Board at the height of the BHC crisis in the mid-1990s.

But if all those past Board members were so little able to influence the performance of the parastatals for which they had been given responsibility, their minimal contribution did come at a significant cost.

I am hopelessly out of date but assume that the sitting allowance for Board members must now be between P1, 500 and P2, 000. If there are, let us say, fifty parastastals each having four Board meetings a year, a notional annual cost to the tax payer would be perhaps P300, 000 – excluding, the cost of the usual, ritual lunch. 

The annual cost to the BMC and the Tourism Authority would, of course, have been a great deal higher because their Board members were regularly able to fly around the world and enjoy the very best of hotels.

Why would anyone of them have resigned even if they knew in their heart of hearts that the whole thing was a non-achieving racket? Yet, year after year, the government has been amazingly unconcerned by the track records of its parastastals and indifferent to the poor return its gets from all those Board members.

Why indeed, are new people so keen to apply to be members when there are only the two Boards which offer their members an opportunity to get out and about.

 A glance at the track record of their predecessors must tell them that their chance of making a meaningful contribution is likely to be very limited?

But let’s try and get this problem into better focus by considering the recent Sunday Standard article headed Matsheka Calls for Reforms.

In this article, Thapelo Matsheka,  Chairman most relevantly of HATAB stressed the importance of tourism to the economy but said that in contrast to agriculture, water and power, it had been left to develop on its own without significant government involvement. Somewhat awkwardly, he was reported as saying that ‘Tourism policy is very important.

Its creation is long overdue. What it will do is to provide guidelines to every player.

‘I take it that this has to mean that the formulation of an updated tourism policy is long over due.

 Its absence must mean either that the previous Board, the previous CEO and the previous Minister failed to recognise this need or that perhaps, the Board did its best to introduce change but having advisory powers only was unable to convince either the CEO or the Minister.  Could this mean on the other hand, that with a new Minister, a new CEO and a new Board, he believes that worthwhile change can now be achieved?

Does this situation at one parastatal give a reasonable idea of the situations that might have pertained at the others? 

Might this suggest, for instance, that the permanent staff of the parastatals have tended to regard their Boards as a necessary irrelevance, have allowed them express their opinions but have then ignored them. 

Would the parastatals, I wonder, have done better or worse without their Boards?