Tshekedi micro-manages BTO
Pauline Dikuelo | Tuesday September 13, 2016 18:00
According to the BTO Act of 2009, the board of directors should be the one that makes all decisions and can only engage the minister for guidelines.
However, the minister has been running the organisation, overlooking the chief executive officer due to the absence of the board of directors.
Appearing before the Committee on Statutory Bodies yesterday, the outgoing BTO CEO, Thabo Dithebe said the organisation currently has four board members including him who cannot form a quorum. He said the contracts of the other five member expired towards end of last year, and they informed the ministry about the developments.
“Some of the board members’ contracts expired around September, October with the last one in November. Following that we then informed the ministry and unfortunately we are still waiting for the ministry to appoint some people who will replace them,” said Dithebe.
According to Dithebe, the ministry has told them that they are still looking for the right people to be part of the board. This shocked the Committee who questioned how the organisation is being run, as the board is the one that is supposed to be running the organisation.
The Committee felt that corporate governance is undermined at BTO due to lack of board of directors with the Dubai office being an example after being given priority at the expense of other markets for which the organisation has done market analysis. Dithebe said there was no market analysis conducted for Dubai, contrary to the normal practice. He said there was a directive from the ministry to open the Dubai office.
“We received a directive from the ministry that we should open an office in Dubai to take advantage of the Middle East and northeast markets. The office was given a priority over the other markets that we intended to open which include, Germany, Brazil and Australia,” said Dithebe. He said about two weeks ago, the organisation’s marketing manager together with the minister went to Dubai to sign a contract with a company called Gaffer Media, which is expected to help market Botswana as a tourist destination in Dubai. The CEO said as per the directive BTO was to engage a Dubai based company to market Botswana and attach a Motswana there as an understudy.
“All I knew was that they were going to Dubai only to find out that a contract was signed which I asked for a copy and was given to me,” he noted. In addition, he noted that the Dubai office has been budgeted for P17 million for the period of three years, which he said is supposed to come from the Botswana tourism development levy that is waiting to be implemented. As per the levy, every non-SADC tourist who will be coming to Botswana will be charged U$30 which will be paid into the levy.