BIDPA in conditions of employment war
Pini Bothoko | Friday August 28, 2020 12:38
The workers disclosed their grievances in a letter they wrote to the Board chairperson. Through the letter, they further disclosed to have also raised similar complaints to the Permanent Secretary (PS) in the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development and also requested his immediate intervention to restore corporate governance at the institute.
In his response, the PS advised them to take up the matter with the Board of Trustees through its chairperson. Subsequently, they explained they also wrote to the Executive Director (ED) of BIDPA, Dr Tebogo Seleka on May 27th requesting the suspension of the implementation of the Revised BIDPA Terms and Conditions of Employment 2020 due to the anomalies that they established.
The workers claimed to have found that Dr Seleka, or the Board of Trustees had sneaked some items that were not agreed upon into the revised Terms and Conditions of Employment. They alleged that some clauses that were not in the draft document approved by the steering committee set up to oversee the work of the consultants and most importantly represent the key stakeholder, namely BIDPA staff were left out.
They argued that they were not satisfied by Dr Seleka’s response hence their appeal to the Board of Trustees. The revised terms set a compulsory retirement age at 65 years for non-research staff and 70 years for research staff. Another issue of concern raised by the workers was that the ED should be employed on a five-year term for a maximum of two terms. Despite this, the institute reserves the right to employ the ED beyond two terms if in the opinion of the trustees the exigencies of the institute demands so, a matter which employees have issues with. They were also not pleased with the idea that the ED may be employed on a fixed term contract as a senior research fellow after he has saved his mandatory two-term five-year fixed contract. They stated that their request for the chairperson’s intervention was to suspend the terms and conditions of employment and reverse the decision taken as the terms and conditions of employment were a subject of contention. According to the workers, the decision taken was in violation of the core principles of corporate governance being fairness, accountability, responsibility and transparency and natural justice.
The employees further challenged the terms and conditions that the revised BIDPA Terms and Conditions were made through a consultative process that involved a reference group consisting of the BIDPA management committee and two staff but their contribution was not part of the process.
They said doing so it showed that there was lack of ownership to the revised terms and conditions of employment amongst staff, hence the mistrust between staff and the leadership. Furthermore, the employees challenged the matter pointing out that they were a part of the control tools or instruments in the corporate governance toolkit, hence BIDPA staff were pivotal and played a substantive role in the policy-making process of the organisation. The workers said when responding to their concerns, Dr Seleka seemed not to subscribe to that view, something that made them think their involvement was only token, something that they were never told at the beginning of the consultative process. However, they said if that were the case, the process would lose its credibility and legitimacy. The workers argued that the additional clauses violate the government position and practice on the tenure of parastatals’ Chief Executive officers.
They further accused Dr Seleka for “knowingly misdirecting” the Board or failing to impartially advise the Board in its decision-making regarding the tenure of the ED, a matter in which he is conflicted. They stated that implementation of the revised terms and conditions of employment by the ED, despite the fact that he was fully aware that they were being challenged was a flagrant disregard of the principles of natural justice and good corporate governance. They added that Dr Seleka as a conflicted party should have referred the matter to the BIDPA management committee. They said for him to respond without consulting anyone demonstrated deep-seated conflict of interest.
Moreover, the workers said the principles of natural justice required that a complainant be given a fair hearing and the offender cannot be the judge in the same matter in which they were involved. They stressed that Dr Seleka’s response was dismissive, and to a greater extent condescending.