No inquiry on BMC

Staff Writer | Thursday October 4, 2012 00:00

 

Government spokesperson Jeff Ramsay said that the appointment of Dr Akolang Tombale, and the independent investigations by the Directorate on Corruption and Economic Crimes (DCEC) were enough to root out the causes of problems at BMC.

'To my knowledge there is no Commission of Inquiry at this stage, but rather a team of investigators working alongside  Dr Tombale to look into what went wrong, as well as take corrective actions. As the President recently stated, Dr Tombale  is reporting fortnightly to Cabinet,' Ramsay said to our inquiries. 

The president has ignored calls for the sacking of the Minister of Agriculture Christian de Graaf retaining him in last week's reshuffle, in which he appointed his brother Tshekedi as the Minister of Environment, Wildlife and Tourism.

A judicial commission of inquiry has a legal backing, is accessible by the public, can make recommendations and carries more weight than an internal investigation.  Meanwhile, it has emerged that the Botswana Meat Industry Workers Union (BMIWU) which comprises employees of BMC has revealed that it cautioned the management and board of BMC about the volunteer  Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Ian Thomson that the gesture was a fallacy.

During a conference on September 15th, held in Lobatse the union reported that: 'As we leave the office we have registered our grievance with the board over the appointment of Ian Thompson and Prasad Siva Ventaka Sbrahmanya Ponangi who are board members.  Thompson's appointment as a volunteer to run a big enterprise the size of BMC is a joke. 'It is our position that BMC needs to be run by a CEO who is full time, committed to the BMC strategy whose record of leadership is impeccable and beyond reproach. We further want to engage the board on our communication strategy. Of late as the congress may be aware BMC has been on the front pages of various newspapers and nothing has been done to address the veracity of such news reports. These untested reports continue to protray us in a bad light,' said a report presented at the conference.