Parliament has passed a motion which request that Parliament committee statutory bodies to investigate alleged corruption, nepotism, misappropriation of funds and failure to follow good governance practices at Statistics Botswana.
The motion that was tabled by MP for Goodhope/Mabule James Mathokgwane got support from both opposition and some ruling party legislators.
“The motion is about remedying mistakes of the past and building a better future at Statistics Botswana. I have documented evidence that there are problems at statistics Botswana. These problems are centred around alleged maladministration,misappropriation of funds and bad corporate governance centred around labour relations,” Mathokgwane said.
He said the evidence shows that none of the candidates called for the interview to fill position of Director of standards, methods and information had passed the interview.
He said the documents shows that the person appointed had failed an interview at lower level.
Mathokgwane stressed that an amount of P1.145, 330.60 from account number of 1001066 which belongs to Statistics Botswana at Barclays Bank was transferred to a corporate current at Barclays Bank.
“On that same day on October 31 2013 the money was cashed and the transaction does not appear on the ledger at Statistics Botswana. These transactions raise an eyebrow and need to be investigated. It is possible that there is nothing amiss at Statistics Botswana but it is similarly possible that there is a lot that is amiss,” he said.
Though some cabinet ministers felt that the issue is better be handled/reported to Directorate on Corruption and Economic Crime, MPs insisted that Parliament has powers to investigate also.
MP for Tati East Moyo Guma said Parliament has statutory bodies that can deal with this matter urgently.
“Parliament has investigated other issues before and I don’t see why we cannot investigate this one. The government should be seen condemning all acts of corruption and I don’t see how all that will undermine DCEC. We can even ask DCEC to help us when dealing with this issue and will send our outcome to them,” Guma said.
The Minister of Defence, Justice and Security Shaw Kgathi said though he agrees that issues of maladministration, misappropriation of funds and others should be investigated, but he strongly felt that Parliament should hand the matter to DCEC.
“We have government bodies which are trained to investigate and they can handle this issue much better than us. As legislators, we have other pressing things to do,” Kgathi.
