Divide and rule!
Mmegi Editor | Wednesday April 2, 2014 11:20
The increment extends to Village Development Committees, old age pensioners, war veterans, and home-based caregivers, amongst others.
The decision flew in the face of ongoing negotiations between unions representing public servants and the employer party.
What concerns us is not the increment per se, but the clear disregard for laid down processes that govern salary increments in the public service.
The 2008 Public Service Act clearly prescribes how any salary adjustment for the civil service should be reached. Characteristic of our Head of State, the process seems not to apply to him.
We wonder why soldiers, police officers and other security officers have to get an increment while negotiations are ongoing.
Why can’t the government wait for the whole process to be concluded? What is the hurry all about?
The big idea is to appease the armed forces – a calculated ruse at self-preservation. We are in Africa by the way. The move paints Botswana as just another African country where lawlessness is the order of the day.
Gaborone looks to be increasingly spoiling for a place in an Africa where hunger and poverty rule the day, and a man armed with a gun is king.
The continent is awash with many examples of dictatorships that have destroyed once promising economies.
When one president embarked on a journey to destroy what was once the bread basket for southern Africa just over a decade ago, he started by paying soldiers huge salaries, promoting them every other month and using them against his own people.
They obeyed his orders and butchered their own. Money bought him a term in office, an electoral victory, and his own security.
It is our belief that the move to increase salaries for the mentioned cadres was also meant to divide the nation and depict unions as spoilt brats and troublemakers bent on causing confusion.
We call on the government of the day to respect laid down laws and procedures, which underpin the spirit and ethos that have carried this country thus far.
Undermining the Public Service Bargaining Council sets a bad precedent for governance in the future.
Today’s thought
“Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws”
– Plato