The Minister of Investment, Trade and Industry Vincent Seretse has told The Business Weekly & Review that he had valid reasons to fire the Botswana Trade Commission (BOTC) board. In a telephonic interview Seretse also denied allegations that he gave the current Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of BOTC Mphoentle Tamasiga unwavering powers in the absence of the board.
Seretse says the board that was chaired by Katane Sithole was fired for amongst other reasons acting as an executive board. Upon discovering that the board had lost direction Minister Seretse says he was forced to dispense with the board. “When I discovered that the board was acting outside the mandate they were appointed to serve, I decided to take action,” explains Seretse.
The newly established commission that was allocated P9.9 million for the 2016/17 financial year shocked the Parliamentary Committee on Statutory Bodies and State Enterprises when it stated that for five (5) staff members it is paying P79 000 monthly rental, which translates to P948 000 annually. Tamasiga blamed the previous board for the lease which he says was entered into when he was not yet in the employment of the commission. “It’s a three (3) year lease, without an option to terminate,” he stated further that he is not comfortable with the lease he inherited. BOTC is currently housed at Masa Centre in the new Gaborone CBD. As per the lease the commission pays P948 000 a year in rental for five (5) people and by the end of the three year lease it will have parted with P2 844 000.
Serestse says the board was supposed to give BOTC direction but instead it made questionable decisions that left him with no choice but to dismiss it. “The issue of the lease shocked us but there was nothing we can do,” he said further explaining that to cancel it would have caused more problems. He concurred with Tamasiga that the lease was signed by the previous board. Going forward, Seretse promises that he will have appointed a new board before November this year. On mismanagement and maladministration as pointed out by a concerned citizen to both the committee and DCEC, minister Seretse says he took action.
Appearing before Parliamentary Committee on Statutory Bodies and State Enterprises, BOTC CEO Tamasiga stated that Seretse gave him powers to run the daily operations of the commission, which currently does not have a board of directors.
Tamasiga says he came up with a temporary structure that saw him single-handedly recruit 5 executive employees whom he had been given powers to headhunt by the previous board. “The Minister told me verbally that the board has been disbanded and I can manage the day to day operations of the commission,’ he told the committee, further explaining that he was instructed to engage the minister should there be any policy matters. The five top executive posts which are the only posts filled by the commission without giving other Batswana an opportunity to apply for those posts according to Ramasiga since they were not advertised.
The committee also established that the hired executive staff members were not interviewed as the board was nonexistent and also since they were employed solely by the CEO. When further quizzed if there were an approved structure for the commission, he admitted that there wasn’t. The previous board that was fired by Minister Seretse was chaired by Katane Sithole. That board was dismissed in March 2016 according to Tamasiga and since then the commission has been operating without the board of directors.