Corruption and Mismanagement in Botswana: A Best ... - See also

CORRUPTION AND MISMANAGEMENT 5I7land and other property' provided this was done on an unincorporatedbasis and outside normal office-hours. Supposedly those concernedcould not be a director or manager in a public or private company,but could 'hold a minority of shares' provided that the officer hadfully paid for them. In the Government's white paper approved byParliament in December I982, it was declared that 'Ministers shouldregister their interests in the same way as members of the publicservice'. Responsibility for the implementation of this importantregister was vested in the President. Forms for an officer's annualdeclaration of property, assets, and liabilities, under General Order No.2IO, were prepared, but the register was either never introduced or fellquickly into abeyance.68The long involvement of the ruling elite in agricultural productionarguably promoted economic rationality and fuelled growth. But thedistinction between public resources and private wealth, between theinterests of the people and those of an influential few, remainedinherently fraught. The amendments to General Orders were made ina time of economic boom, represented in a fashion commercial sense,and accorded with the ways of Tswana rulers. But the openness andweaknesses of the new regulations, and the non-existence of any registerof assets and liabilities, may have unfolded the way to an abandonmentof the distinction between public and private assets, notably as regardsland, farming, housing, and the borrowing of funds. In the prevailingeconomic and political conditions, a Rubicon seems to have beencrossed. Many in the ruling elite, as the cases here indicate, are now theowners and/or directors of commercial companies; some, as bothministers and directors, have acquired advantageous loans for theirfirms from state-owned financial institutions which they have beenreluctant to repay, leading to the bankruptcy of the public bodies. Thishas proceeded in a hidden and secretive way, with little or noaccountability, despite high financial and other costs to the nation.PREDOMINANCE OF THE RULING ELITEEconomically engaged leaders emerged in the hierarchical society ofnineteenth/twentieth-century Botswana. Rapid growth has deepenedthe inequalities of property and incomes. By the early I 98os, according68 Editorial, Botswana Gazette, ii March i 992. The Presidential Commission on EconomicOpportunities, on which the Government's white paper was based, had also proposed thatParliament appoint an Ombudsman.