Tension at BTC as Lippe saga nears end

Brian Benza
Staff Writer | Friday March 5, 2010 00:00

 

This comes in the midst of reports of widespread disgruntlement among BTC management and general staff surfacing. BTC sources say the sense of trepidation is reportedly exacerbated by the continued absence of Lippe, who was the author of the turnaround strategy BTC is currently implementing, and impending privatisation of the parastatal. When Lippe was suspended four weeks ago, employees were told that the investigations would be wrapped up within a short time and that there would be no disruption in the functioning and operations of BTC. Chairman Leonard Makwinja told Business Week on Wednesday that it had not been possible to conclude investigations in as quickly as initially intended because the issue being investigated was of a serious nature and Deloitte needed as much time as it would take to do a proper job. 'Initially we expected the report two weeks ago but that did not happen,' Makwinja said. 'We now expect to have the report by Friday (today).' Deloitte officials also confirmed on Wednesday that they were putting final touches to the report and would be handing over their report on Thursday or Friday at the latest.

Regarding employee morale, Makwinja confirmed rumblings of labour uneasiness at BTC and said he would meet with the union on Monday. 'I met with the acting CEO Keabetswe Segole,' he said. 'I am going to meet with the workers' union on Monday to find out what is happening.'

Contacted for comment, Segole said they had been approached by the union who demanded an update on the Lippe issue.'As executive management, we could not do much since this matter is being handled by the board,' he said. 'What we only did was to facilitate a meeting between the board and the union and that meeting will take place on Monday.'The Lippe issue also came at a time when the workforce was still in the dark regarding how the pending privatisation programme of BTC would affect them. Although Makwinja has never revealed the reasons why Lippe was suspended, reports say the highflying CEO was suspended over the FIFA World Cup ticket scam in which the parastatal lost about P1.8 million. Segole would not comment on the issue except to say 'at the moment all we are interested in is recovering the money the company lost'.

Efforts to get a comment from Lippe on reasons for his suspension were fruitless as he insisted he was still a BTC employee and still bound by confidentiality rules. Another allegation doing the rounds is that of impropriety in the recent deal signed by BTC and Zimbabwe's Powertel.

The US$5 million deal two-year agreement with Powertel is for the provision of international bandwidth capacity to Zimbabwe after the two organisations completed cross-border fibre connections at Ramokgwebana in December last year.