Former DCEC Boss Decries Security Of Tenure
Innocent Selatlhwa | Monday September 23, 2019 12:18
Katlholo was speaking at a public lecture hosted by Botswana Centre for Public Integrity (BCPI) on Thursday.
He is currently the managing director of Tyedo Investments (Pty). The company through one of its services, fraud and corruption prevention, provides consultancy to a variety of organisations; both public and private in the field of fraud and corruption prevention as well as special forensic investigation.
“People have complained about the appointment of leaders of oversight institutions. Talking for the DCEC, I do not have a problem with who appoints the DCEC director.
I am only worried about the security of tenure. Unlike the Directorate of Public Prosecution (DPP), the Attorney General and some judges, the provision for the appointment of the DCEC director is not entrenched in the Constitution,” Katlholo said.“It is high time we look into that because the worst thing that one can do to the institution of the magnitude of the DCEC is to keep on changing the leadership as when one likes because in that way one is actually destabilising the institution.
By doing that one is also killing public confidence in the organisation.”
Quizzed further on what the implications might be, Katlholo said the arrangement could mount pressure on employees and the appointees who would be wondering what would happen to them. He however said that would not necessarily lead to cases being shelved.
The DCEC was established in September 1994 under the Corruption and Economic Crime Act. There has been three other directors at DCEC since Katlholo left, with the latest Joseph Mathambo having been appointed in April this year. Mathambo took over the baton from Bruno Paledi who held the hot seat from August 2017.
Paledi, despite promising a number of improvements at the directorate could only last 19 months, making his stint the shortest. He was transferred to the Ministry of Defence Justice and Security as the Secretary.
Rose Seretse, who now heads Botswana Energy Regulatory Authority (BERA), left after heading the corruption-busting agency for eight years.
The then president Ian Khama appointed Seretse in 2009. She left in 2019 to be the founding CEO of BERA.
Katlholo resigned from the DCEC in April 2009. He is a former director of the Criminal Investigation Department who joined the DCEC as deputy director in 1994 when it was formed. Three years later, he became its director.