Each week, Batswana are fed allegations, counter allegations, denials and all manner of reprimands, as the federation and its former member drag each other over the coals. In order to avoid further inflaming the situation, we will not repeat some of the statements made thus far, save to say there have been many instances of unsavoury and even libellous narrative by either side.
The hostilities have increasingly become about personalities within both labour organisations and ad hominem attacks are daily fare in the various media employed by both sides in the conflict. As the labour bodies continue their conflict, the civil servants they ostensibly represent appear to be the least of their worries. Having just emerged from a year in which they received a non-inflation reflective wage adjustment, civil servants are almost certainly headed into another. Many are heavily indebted, often to the level of zero net pay, due largely to union leaders offering them on a platter to credit kings, through garnish agreements. Hire purchase service providers, lay-by schemes, loans, salary advances and other types of credit, combined with union soft loans and other commitments unfairly congregate on shrinking payslips. The civil servant is a prime target of credit providers in Botswana, representing a secure line of easy interest income and the unions who should be enhancing workers’ financial literacy and defending them from exploitative credit providers, are absorbed in ‘Tom and Jerry’ antics.
