The humble trouble-maker

KAGISO SEKOKONYANE
Staff Writer | Monday October 4, 2010 00:00

On the other hand, he has become the darling of the employees. However, the BLLAWU president is quick to deny that he is troublesome. In fact he describes himself as a humble person who is on a mission to uplift the lives of those on the lower rungs of life.

From humble beginnings in the dusty grounds of Ramokgonami, Baeng has risen to be an influential leader as a trade unionist. He becomes nostalgic when he remembers his childhood. He says he did not have it easy when growing up. He says he comes from a poor family and he vividly remembers the 1982 and 1986 droughts that decimated all the family livestock and left them destitute. The bursary scheme at the time came to his rescue and paid for his education. This was a life-long lesson that was to dictate his career path.

When he completed his Cambridge at Moeng College, he decided to look for employment so that he could pay for his younger brother’s school fees. “My parents couldn’t afford to pay for his education and I didn’t want him to suffer the same fate that I had,” he explains. He says his leadership qualities were honed long before he became a unionist. In fact he is a headman of Chiring ward in his village. He has appointed someone to deputise for him while he is still serving at national level. Matters that his deputy cannot handle are referred to him for arbitration.

He regularly goes home to attend to these ward issues. He says at one point, he was approached by some elders to be the village headman but he declined because he was already engaged at the union.

Baeng’s first job after Moeng College was at the Department of Customs and Excise. He left the job because it was not challenging enough. His next stop was the Ministry of Local Government where he worked under the Remote Area Development Programme as an Assistant Project Officer at Phuduhudu in the North West District. He was dealing mainly with the disadvantaged members of the community and this resonated well with his passion to help the privileged. He registered to teach in the Department of Non-Formal Education.

He was at odds with the system because he felt that the syllabus was not addressing the needs of the community.He developed his own teaching methods and they worked well as his students passed the Primary Five examinations. As it turned out, some people interpreted this as a defiant move intended to politicise the community. His employers were not thrilled. The quest for higher education bugged him and when he approached his employer for sponsorship he was turned down, not once but twice. This did not dampen his spirit to acquire education as he went ahead and applied to join the University of Botswana (UB) in 1997. He was admitted though he did not have sponsorship. Realising that he would lose his place, he went back to Phuduhudu and sold all that he had and raised money to pay at UB. “I only left cutlery, cups and saucers for my mother,” he says. 

Fortunately he had many leave days and he applied for two-months leave. “I had faith that during this period, some miracle would happen and I would get sponsorship.” As fate would have it, he got sponsorship from the German Adult Education Association through the assistance of the UB Deputy Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs, Prof Frank Youngman. “He helped me because I had explained my situation to him.”

Having graduated from poverty, Baeng feels that he understands the language of the poor. “When I speak about poverty, I speak with commitment because I have been there. No risk can deter me from my focus to correct those injustices that I see. I’m not even scared of losing my life,” he says without emotion.

When he got to UB, he did not want to be involved in student politics. He wanted to complete his course with a merit and did not want to be engaged in anything outside academic work. But it was only a matter of time before he was in the mix of students. He started with a group calling itself UB SRC Crisis Pressure Group during his first year. Within four months of being an ordinary member, he was elected chairman of the group. The aim of the group was to topple the Student Representative Council leadership of the time. In the next elections, Baeng assumed the presidency of the SRC.

It was not a smooth ride in the hot seat as they were engaged with the UB management on an array of issues pertaining to student life on campus. One of the main disputes of the time centred on demands to increase students’ allowances. What started as a UB issue eventually spread to all tertiary institutions around the country.

At one point, Baeng led a negotiating team of tertiary education institutions against the Ministry of Education. On the other side was Festinah Bakwena, the head of Directorate of Public Service Management (DPSM). A strike boycott was averted when the two parties struck an agreement. Years down the line, he faced Bakwena again across the negotiating table after the recent strike threats by civil servants over pay. “History is repeating itself. I reminded her about the past encounter and she remembered,” Baeng says. This time round a national strike was averted when government agreed to pay the P2 billion it owes civil servants.

Baeng’s spell at BULGASA started in the lower ranks until he assumed the presidency of the union in 2004. It was not easy as the union did not have an office. The files were kept at the office bearers’ houses. He says he found the union without an ideological philosophy. But he later gave it a working class ideology, tools of analysis and guiding principles. The union was later transformed to BLLAWU.

Baeng beams with happiness when he talks about the achievements they have made as a union. He says they are the envy of other unions. He is happy that the union has been able to build an office for rent. They have employed staff and invested in a number of companies for the benefit of members.

By the end of the year, Baeng will relinquish his position as BLLAWU president. He could have left in 2007 but was asked by the union membership to lead the transformation from BULGASA to BLLAWU. He feels he has done his part and it is time for him to pass the baton to others. He will also relinquish his position as the publicity secretary of BOFEPUSO. “I can’t be holding onto the BOFEPUSO position when I would have stepped down as leader of BLLAWU,” he says.