Katholo was giving a keynote address at the Orapa, Letlhakane and Damtshaa Mines (OLDM) 2013 ethics hotline re-launch in Orapa last week Wednesday.The former DCEC director said the invisibility of these crimes result in financial losses to companies and eventually to the detriment of all their employees."Fraud, theft and other white collar crimes are increasingly a cause for concern in Botswana," said Katholo.Katholo said these crimes remain undetected because ways of reporting the matters are outdated and organisations need to employ new strategies such as ethics hotlines to improve their transparency, integrity and accountability.
Ethics hotline is a confidential reporting channel that provides mostly employees with an alternative means to silence or an opportunity to report possible illegal, unethical or improper conduct at workplace.Suggestion boxes, employee satisfaction surveys, focus groups and training middle level managers to listen and respond to employees are some of the methods which are used to collect information internally in a company, he said."However, these methods have been ineffective hence the need to implement the ethics hotline services as it is a simple strategy that is also cost-effective for companies," said Katholo.
