Decline in accountability hurts implementation – BIDPA
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BIDPA SENIOR RESEARCH FELLOW: Keneilwe Marata
Senior Research fellows at the Botswana Institute of Development Policy Analysis (BIDPA), Gape Kaboyakgosi and Keneilwe Marata have pinpointed key factors that have led to implementation challenges in Botswana. They noted that for public policy goals to be realized, implementation needs to be optimized.
According to the Researchers, these include declining public accountability, lack of commitment to reforming the public sector, and a decline in commitment by state authorities and the declining credibility of the government’s ability to adhere to its policies, among other factors. These challenges emerge as strong bottlenecks to optimal policy implementation.
Lack of commitment to selected policy choices is emerging as an important challenge for project implementation. Kaboyakgosi and Marata posit that since the turn of the new millennium, the government has increasingly created and adopted policies to which it does not adhere.
They cite that policy commitment assists in building state credibility (when dealing with outsiders such as investors), and certainty among the locals. They also give a number of examples that show failure in this respect:
• The failure to privatize Air Botswana after the Government had called for international bidders to buy a stake in the national airliner, including the government spending funds in procuring an international transaction advisor,
• The failure to procure a private sector partner to develop the Botswana International University of Science and Technology (BIUST) campus in Palapye in partnership with the Government, as had been promised. Though the Government’s call for a partner resulted in two such partners posting a P1 million each, the fate of the two bonds of one million Pula each that were posted remain unclear
• Commitment to the Public Private Partnerships (PPP) Policy appears half-hearted. Whereas the policy was adopted by Parliament, there appears to be little enthusiasm for PPPs and there is insufficient explanation why this is so. Thirteen years after the adoption of the Public-Private Partnership Policy and Framework, only two minor undertakings have been carried out under the PPP framework.
According to Kaboyakgosi and Marata, besides the slowing momentum of policy implementation, the policy reversals mentioned above have other costs. They observed that a committee charged with reviewing the implementation failures associated with building the Botswana International University of Science and Technology (BIUST), came up with a number of costs likely to result from policy reversals related to the project.
These include uncertainty of investment returns, impact on investor confidence, and adverse impact on the international marketing of Botswana projects, negative perception of government commitment, and the erosion of reputation in the medium term.
The BIDPA researchers also point out that Botswana appears to be experiencing a steady decline in accountability. Botswana’s public accountability has declined from 75 percent in 1996 to 60 percent in 2010, according to the World Bank Institute, they write. According to Kaboyakgosi and Marata, optimal public accountability ensures that goals are not diverted, and excesses are kept at a minimal, but holding politicians and public servants accountable for their actions (or omissions) is diminishing in Botswana.
“Such a culture pervades the civil service and state owned corporations. In the civil service, the limited capacity for oversight by Parliament and the Office of the Auditor General (OAG) compounds the problem.
Parliament comes into contact with the budget on the day the speech is read by the Minister in charge of finance and development planning. Parliament then has only a month to debate a document that has taken ten times longer to prepare, with little access to the parameters that informed the same budget(s). Similarly, the OAG lacks the authority to enforce some of the decisions it makes in relation to poor management of public resources, leading to repeated malpractice,” wrote Kaboyakgosi and Marata.
The two Researchers poke further by stating that: “Where state owned corporations are concerned, a number of parliamentary inquiries have revealed a worrying trend that points to lack of accountability. Committees set up to investigate poor performance at the Botswana Meat Commission (Republic of Botswana 2013) and the failure of the Palapye Glass Project both conclude that the major causes of failure include poor corporate governance, lack of due diligence, failure to contain prices, and poor project management. Poor accountability results in implementing agents not taking their tasks seriously, misappropriating funds, or changing the goals of policy.”
They are also concerned by the reluctance to reform. Kaboyakgosi and Marata observe that since the turn of the century, Botswana’s rankings in certain policy areas, particularly those concerned with industrial development, diversification, and competitiveness and doing business have been declining steadily. Initially adept at reforming her political, economic, legal and other frameworks, Botswana’s reluctance to reform is becoming more pronounced. The submit that the decline as shown by indicators such as the Doing Business Index (DBI) and the Global Competitiveness Index (GCI) suggests an unwillingness by Botswana to reform policies and laws to respond to a changing world.
“While it is arguable that the DBI shows some growth for the period under review, such growth is minimal, given the urgency to position Botswana as a destination of choice for foreign direct investment. The GCI on the other hand shows a steady decline in performance, from number 56 best countries in the world in 2008 to number 80 by 2011,”they wrote.
Another notable example of a reform process that has been abandoned quietly is the implementation of the results based monitoring and evaluation (RBM) inside the Government. RBM is used to generate information and data needed for evidence based policy making and it facilitates accountability and aids planning.
“Lack of commitment to reform is also evidenced by the failure to empower reform institutions, such as the National Strategy Office and the Public Enterprises Evaluation and Privatization Agency (PEEPA), thus rendering them incapable of driving reform. The NSO, a semiautonomous agency in the Office of the President, whose mandate includes coordinating the Botswana Excellence Strategy (BES), lacks legal authority to undertake certain aspects of its mandate. Similarly PEEPA, formed out of the Privatisation Policy for Botswana to advise the Government on the readiness of state owned institutions for privatization, has no legal basis to implement its mandate because it is a creation of a policy. As a result, neither one of these important agencies is able to enforce its mandate, leaving compliance and implementation to the discretion of the implementing agencies.”
The challenges of policy complexity
Another implementation challenge, according to the two BIDPA Researchers, is the growing complexity of the economy, administration and society. They point out that three challenges characterize complex implementation problems: The capacity to tackle complex problems is often distributed among actors; Complex problems are difficult to predict: many social, political and economic problems are not easy to forecast; and Complex problems often involve conflicting goals.
They insist that while many of the policy challenges facing the Government are complex, many implementation structures are ill-suited to handle complexity. According to Kaboyakgosi and Marata, the result of this is that implementers focus overly on one cause or effect, to the detriment of other equally important causes or effects of these policy challenges.
They buttress that Botswana’s persistent challenges such as poverty, the spread of HIV, slow diversifying economy and high unemployment have multiple causes and effects, so managing them is difficult. Many laws and policies, as well as agencies need to be mobilized to achieve positive outcomes.
In addition, Kaboyakgosi and Marata observed that another important implementation challenge is the propensity, particularly in the public sector, to undertake projects without due assessment of the need for such projects. They point out that projects are developed because of the ability of the Government to procure them than an assessed need for such projects. Examples include the following:
• Both the Francistown and Maun abattoirs to add to the original one at Lobatse resulted in the Botswana Meat Commission losing profitability as its cost structure rose.
• Undertaking the Morupule B Power Plant, BIUST, major dams all within a five year span constrained labour supply and drove construction prices up (MIST 2012), and
• Constructing vocational training colleges (VTCs), led to an over-supply of these, and an undersupply of students and instructors.
The BIDPA researchers state that Supply driven implementation has a number of undesirable consequences. Among these effects are that though undertaken at great financial cost, outputs of such implementation tend to have little relevance to the needs of the nation. Additionally, when projects are implemented without due regard for demand, priority areas are deprived of much needed funds.
“Added to the foregoing, projects implemented without due regard for the demand send wrong signals to the market; businesses tend to mobilize financial and other resources in response to what they see as public sector priorities, only for these to have minimal future sustainability. The consequences of this is that businesses may borrow money from banks, train and employ human resources and purchase materials, only for the Government priorities to change, saddling such businesses with expensive and idle facilities,” they wrote in their paper.
Kaboyakgosi and Marata further indicate that while there appears to be consensus that implementation challenges have become more pronounced in Botswana, there is no explanation for this problem. They state that until recently, lack of finance, which is one of the often cited implementation challenges, has not been a problem in Botswana. “However, this challenge is likely to gain prominence with the decline of mineral revenues. The next section therefore outlines some of the causes of Botswana’s implementation challenges”.
Furthermore, Botswana’s implementation challenges transcend economic and social policies as well as affect the capacity of the state to achieve many of its stated policy aims. According to Kaboyakgosi and Marata, a number of implementation challenges have since become prominent in Botswana and these include the persistence of HIV/AIDS, slow economic diversification, rising youth unemployment, poverty and social inequality.
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The roles of PAP committees explained
Permanent Committees of the Pan African Parliament facilitate the effective implementation of the policies and objectives of the OAU/AEC.
The PAP Permanent Committees roles were eloquently explained by the PAP President Hon. Chief Fortune Zephania Charumbira when giving a presentation on the mandate of the permanent committees of the PAP on Tuesday in Midrand, South Africa. Charumbira’s words of encouragement come on the backdrop of the Pan African Parliament (PAP) members are attending the PAP Permanent Committee meetings that started on March 5-9 in Midrand, South Africa.
The mandate of PAP is to ensure the full participation of African peoples in the economic development and integration of the continent, therefore the permanent committees provide oversight to ensure effective implementation of policies.
According to Charumbira, effective implementation will drive the Africa Agenda 2063, African Continental Free Trade Area, AU Shared Values, Flagship Projects such the Inga Dam Project, Single African Air Transport Market, among others; and further facilitate attainment of AU Theme of the Year: “The Year of AFCTFTA: Accelerating the AFCFTA Implementation”.
Relatedly, the objectives of the Pan-African Parliament promote the principles of human rights and democracy in Africa; encourage good governance, transparency and accountability in Member States; Promote peace, security and stability; Contribute to a more prosperous future for the peoples of Africa by promoting collective self-reliance and economic recovery; Facilitate cooperation and development in Africa; Strengthen Continental solidarity and build a sense of common destiny among the peoples of Africa; and Facilitate cooperation among Regional Economic Communities and their Parliamentary fora.
THE PAP PERMANENT COMMITTEES
(a) The Committee on Rural Economy, Agriculture, Natural Resources and Environment;
(b) The Committee on Monetary and Financial Affairs;
(c) The Committee on Trade, Customs and Immigration Matters;
(d) The Committee on Cooperation, International Relations and Conflict Resolutions;
(e) The Committee on Transport, Industry, Communications, Energy, Science and Technology;
(f) The Committee on Health, Labor and Social Affairs;
(g) The Committee on Education, Culture, Tourism and Human Resources;
(h) The Committee on Gender, Family, Youth and People with Disability;
(i) The Committee on Justice and Human Rights;
(j) The Committee on Rules, Privileges and Discipline;
The Committees shall handle business that is ordinarily handled by the corresponding Specialized Technical Committee responsible to the Executive Council in accordance with Article 14 of the Constitutive Act.
SPECIFIC FUNCTIONS OF THE COMMITTEES
As for the specific functions of the committees, the Committee on Rural Economy, Agriculture, Natural Resources and Environment amongst other functions: Considers the development of common regional and continental policies in agricultural sector; Assists the Parliament to oversee and assist with the harmonization of policies for rural and agricultural development; and promotes the development policy and the implementation of programs of the Union relating to natural resources and environment.
On the other hand, the Committee on Monetary and Financial Affairs shall, amongst others: Examines the draft estimates of the Parliamentary budget and submit to Parliament; Discusses the budget of the Union and make appropriate recommendations; Examines and report to Parliament on the problems involved in the implementation of the annual budget; and Assists Parliament to execute its role of establishing sound economic, monetary and investment policies.
Meanwhile the Committee on Trade, Customs and Immigration Matters amongst other roles: Considers matters relating to development of sound policy for cross-border, regional and continental concerns within the areas of trade, customs and immigration; Assists the Parliament to oversee relevant organs or institutions and policies of the Union; and Helps the Parliament to oversee external trade.
The Committee on Cooperation, International Relations and Conflict Resolutions shall, amongst others: Considers issues relating to the development of an efficient policy in matters of cooperation and international relations of the Parliament and the Union; Deals with the conventions and protocols linking the Parliament with regional and international institutions and report to the Parliament; Carries out examinations on the revision of Protocols and Treaties of the Union; Assists the Parliament in its efforts of conflict prevention and resolution.
The Committee on Transport, Industry, Communications, Energy, Science and Technology shall, amongst others: Considers issues relating to the development of transport and communications infrastructure; Assists Parliament to oversee the development and implementation of policies of the Union relating to transport, communication, science and technology and industry; Considers issues relating to the use of science and technology for the development of the Continent; Helps Parliament to supervise the development policies and the Union implementation programs for matters of industry, science, technology and energy.
The Committee on Health, Labor and Social Affairs deals with strategies and programs for the improvement of the lives of African peoples; Considers issues relating to regional and international cooperation in strategic planning and implementation of social development and health policies and programs.
The Committee on Education, Culture, Tourism and Human Resources shall, amongst others: Considers issues relating to the development of human resources in Member States;Assists Parliament to promote policy development and implementation of programs of the Union relating to access to education, promotion and preservation of culture and tourism and human resource development.
The Committee on Gender, Family, Youth and People with Disability shall, amongst others: Considers issues relating to the promotion of gender equality; Assists
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I cannot reconcile with Khama – Guma
For the second time now, the Botswana Patriotic Front (BPF) National Executive Committee (NEC) meeting turned into a tribalistic boardroom brawl which turned violet and was ultimately capped off with a resignation from one member of the NEC.
Samson Moyo Guma decided to leave the party after a heated exchange with the party patron Lt Gen Ian Khama who attended the Monday meeting at Arirang virtually. The meeting, according to insiders, started on a good footing with President Biggie Butale asking about the venue of their much anticipated congress.
However, things turned nasty as Butale, after the venue discussion was concluded, asked some NEC members to stop attacking the party in public. The accused included the patron, Deputy Treasurer and Deputy Secretary General. It is then that, Guma pleaded with the patron to always liaise with President Butale before he can issue out any public statement, especially about the party, as the two work together.
“Guma then asked Patron to comment, Khama said he did not have any comment. But Guma then told patron to always inform Butale about anything he intends to do, and that is when all hell broke loose. Khama went berserk, he accused Butale of being a thief who stole party money and accused both of them of being captured and sent by the BDP to destabilize the party. Guma then told him to stop being abusive and that they will not tolerate his autocracy and the whole meeting turned chaotic as some NEC members of Ngwato origin now defended Khama,” said one NEC member who attended the meeting.
Guma was riled according to meeting attendees, and decided to walk out of the meeting and subsequently decided to resign his membership. Butale was also annoyed by the stance taken by some to defend the patron on the basis of being their paramount chief, and he too decided to leave the meeting but did not quit the party. This was after a violet attack between some NEC members. Butale is currently nursing the injuries he sustained when he tried to intervene in a fist fight.
Before all these scenes, one of the agenda items was to suspend the NEC members who disparage other members and the party in public. Failure to execute the plan frustrated both Butale and Guma.
In an interview following a tense meeting that led to his resignation, Guma said the difference between him and Khama is huge and irreconcilable. “I cannot reconcile with him, in fact, no one can reconcile with Khama,” Guma told Weekendpost before he continued. “He should maybe reconcile first with President Mokgweetsi Masisi that is when we can see if it is doable. But for now, I am at peace. I have left him with his party, but I am with the UDC now.”
Some in the party say the party will regret the departure of some key members such as Guma eventually. “We are losing people who add quality to the party. Guma has assisted us with a printing machine for membership cards as well as assisting meaningfully to pay office rent, but since he is gone, we might be in for a hard time.”
The two are, however, expected to meet at Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC) as the BPF congress will ratify the NEC decision to join the main opposition party. Once they ratify, and if Khama is elected President, he will find Guma in the UDC. However, it is not clear what role Guma will serve in the UDC.
Guma and Khama have been trading blows once it became apparent that the former will contest for the BPF Presidency. Khama wanted anyone else but Guma. Khama’s political wisdom told him no one can beat Guma in the party in the race for the party leadership, but Khama was not confortable with the idea of Guma becoming the leader of the party he founded. Khama then decided to put on political garments and declared his candidature to lead the party. This is contrary to his uncles’ advice to stay away from politics, especially the BPF Presidency.
Khama’s opposition to Guma leading BPF has opened a can of worms, as some believe it corroborates the popular hypothesis saying the party is the project of the Khamas and no one will be allowed to lead it. One political observer opines that, if Guma or Butale could be allowed to lead the party without any interference, it will increase its footprint in the North East, which help in making it a mainstream party, as opposed to the current perfection that it is a Bangwato project.
The BPF has had a turbulent time ever since its patron, who is also a former President, Khama, relocated to South Africa. He said acts of indiscipline and deep divisions rocked the party, something which irked him.
The party’s NEC is set to convene this weekend in Phikwe, but contents of the meeting are a secret.
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More nurses heading for the UK
According to a report, the number of nurses leaving Botswana for better-paying jobs in the United Kingdom has increased significantly. This development has the potential to negatively impact the country’s struggling health sector.
Kenosi Mogorosi, the publicity secretary of the Botswana Nurses Union (BONU), in a letter addressed to union members on March 22, 2023, provides a comprehensive analysis of the factors that have affected the country’s nursing fraternity.
Through an agreement with the National Health Service (NHS), BONU was able to help facilitate the transfer of nurses from Botswana to the UK.
In a letter to the country’s nurses, Mogorosi stated that the recruitment firms Swift Trust and NEU Professionals would be coming to the country to look for 20 adult medical health nurses each.
“Submission of CV’s will be done at Lobatse Cumberland hotel on the 27th of March 2023 and Gaborone BONU offices on the 28 March 2023. Subsequently conducting interviews at Lobatse Cumberland Hotel on the 3rd April 2023 and Gaborone Hilton Garden Hotel on the 4th April 2023,” said Mogorosi.
He added that “This comes short notice because the trust is already in Southern Africa and could not reach its target in Zambia, hence coming to Botswana. All nurses who will be shortlisted for interviews should ensure that they mention that they were referred by BONU for easy coordination of sponsorship including English language tests.”
He also stated that “Since its short notice, nurses need not to travel from far places hence nurses around Lobatse and Gaborone can ensure they do submit their CVS.”
BONU is also working with the UK’s NHS to help its members secure jobs overseas as the country is going through a recruitment drive to address its shortage of 40,000 nurses.
This will increase the nursing vacancy rate in Botswana, which currently stands at over 30%. It is expected to further cripple the country’s already struggling health sector.
Last year, the Essex Partnership University NHS Foundation Trust (EPUT) said it offered roles to more than 60 nurses from Botswana. The Recruitment team at EPUT spent eight days in Botswana interviewing hundreds of nurses interested in a career with the NHS. Nesta Williams, Director of Workforce Transformation and International Recruitment, at the time said said: “We’re delighted that 66 nurses have chosen to take the next step in their nursing career with EPUT.”
“The interview panel was impressed by the applicants’ commitment to their patients, understanding of good team working, and their approach to providing excellent care.
“Some of the nurses are trained in both mental health and physical health, and this means they could choose to work in a range of services.”
The NHS’s clinical workforce is the largest in the world. Nurses play a vital role in delivering person-centered care.
Professor Natalie Hammond, Executive Nurse, said: “The last two years of the pandemic have been extremely challenging. A robust nursing workforce helps us provide safe care, meet the needs of our communities, and is key to achieving our vision be the leading health and wellbeing service in the provision of mental health and community care.”
“It’s an exciting time; our EPUT clinicians will have opportunities to share their experience and expertise with our new colleagues from Botswana.”
A recruitment team of the Essex Partnership University NHS Trust spent eight days in Botswana two weeks ago during which they say they interviewed “hundreds of applicants” who want to work in the UK.
In the first round of their recruitment campaign in Botswana, the NHS had hired 66 nurses from the huge parade of applicants and revealed that more recruitments are expected to follow.
Indications are that a nurse in England earns an average P52 000 per month; and the figure goes up to P70 000 for a nurse in Ireland and other places in the UK. In Botswana a registered nurse earns between P12 000 and P20 000.