The Ombudsman and his toothlessness

Mmegi Editor | Wednesday May 31, 2017 11:58

In fact, Augustine Makgonatsotlhe almost labelled the office as a useless waste of taxpayer’s money. His bone of contention is that the government is not responsive to any form of enquiry and that the flow of information is of less assistance to the operations and mandate of his office. With his experience in government, having served in different capacities in senior positions, including being Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Defence, Justice and Security (MDJS) Makgonatsotlhe’s remarks should not be taken lightly because he has close contacts in the civil service and the view is that he should not face any resistance when looking for information.  Under the leadership of former minister Ndelu Seretse, MDJS was one of the few ministries with a strategy to share information with the public through the media.

However, these efforts were never enough because of the stringent control of government information flow by the Office of the President. Several savingrams and directives have been unleashed in the last eight years with the sole purpose of making it difficult for other institutions to access information in public offices. Parliamentarians have in the past complained that they are also subjected to harassment when seeking information, which they can use to make informed contributions, debates and decisions in Parliament. This has made it easy for ministers to provide false or misleading information in Parliament and other forums such as kgotla meetings and press conferences; corruption has become rampant and nobody is held accountable; while institutions such as Directorate on Corruption and Economic Crimes have been rendered obsolete .

Some senior government officials and politicians, including the President have embarked on a campaign to demonise the private press, on the other hand ensuring that the public is starved of information they need to know. Efforts to have the Freedom of Information Act in place have been crushed, while the state media has been used as a platform for a few individuals in the ruling party who are the President’s favourites. Rre Makgonatsotlhe is new in his position and already he is feeling the pinch of being kept in the dark when there is a flood of complaints and allegations of corruption going through his door. We hope that the authorities will hear his plea and amend the Ombudsman Act to give the office more powers to demand information from public officers. It is interesting that many people only start seeing things when they are on the other side of the aisle, even though they had the opportunity to influence for the betterment of the offices when the sun was still shining for them elsewhere.

 

Today’s thought 

“Power does not corrupt. Fear corrupts. Perhaps the fear of a loss of power.” 

 – John Steinbeck