A Costly Sweetener?

Sandy Grant | Monday March 6, 2017 16:24

With the crisis at Air Botswana? When was it not in a state of crisis? Or perhaps it should be with the Directorate of Intelligence and Security, which has never been out of the news since it was established.

Now we have minister Eric Molale, responding to concerns about secretive procurement expressed in the National Assembly, saying that ‘ever since the DIS was established it has been doing a good job.’ (Mmegi March 1).

The Minister is more aware than almost everyone else, that the job that the DIS is doing is so confidential that, as with the BDF, only a handful of people in the country know what it is.

Why then such a breathtaking, even brazen statement? But then what could be more brazen than the Office of the President’s sleight of hand in using Disaster Relief funds to help establish the DIS and then fail to account for a substantial part of those funds. (Sunday Standard 26.2.17)

There has also been the controversy over the current President’s retirement benefits. I have no idea to what extent Presidents Masire and Mogae were able to negotiate the nature and amount of such benefits until each was satisfied that they had got all that they required.

In theory, there should be a standard formula with one shoe fitting all. But it appears to be not working out that way. Seemingly, a pattern is being set that allows a President to spell out his requirements and then approval immediately follows.

But then again, a President who can make rain in time for the next election is surely entitled to everything that he could possibly want. But on the other hand, the rains had both positive and negative effects.

The dams over flowed but also caused widespread flooding and damage with an entire train coming off the track because of a washout, roads being cut and homes destroyed.

Where should credit be given and where should it be held back? It is a tricky equation. But then again, there is the P10 million which is to be given to each of the 57 constituencies or a grand total of P570 million no less.

I have lost track regarding this little sweetener and have no idea from where this cash came or indeed who, if anyone, approved it?

Huge sums of cash are now wafted around which appear to be of no known origin. It is as if there is an instant cash machine tucked away in some Government office. Public spending in the past was tightly controlled. There was a national development plan and an established process of discussion and approval for each annual budget. All that seems now to have been discarded.

Apart, that is, from the still retained routines which provide a notion of normality.

 It follows that it is more than breathtaking that P10 million is to be given to each constituency as a no strings attached gift with no stated obligations regarding accounting.

Who will be able to reach the necessary decisions about the uses to which this largesse can be put? The dikgosi have apparently been told to keep out of the way which presumably leaves it to local politicians to battle it out.

The outcome could so easily turn out to be ugly. There will be many who will be hell bent on getting their hands on that sort of cash.

And they will pull no strings to get at it. But who, in each constituency will hold the cash, or at least, be the guardian of the gateway to it?

Personally I would not take on such a job because that P10 million is likely to destroy the social harmony that people in those 57 constituencies have always enjoyed.

It may help to win an election but only at a severe cost. Can the possible gain be worth the possible loss? Money is so dangerous but when allied to power, it can become very frightening. This country or more correctly, this Government is loaded.

 It always has cash readily at hand for the DIS and for military procurement, but finds itself short of funds when routine payments have to be made for students or for commissioned services.

Why is military spending going through the roof when so many of the poorest people of this country are overlooked - until there is a need for their vote?