Botswana resource-cursed, says Saleshando

● Finance minister admits crisis surrounding GABS

As the Government Accounting and Budgeting System (GABS) has adversely affected the execution of financial transactions, especially payment of suppliers of goods and services, Member of Parliament (MP) for Maun West, Dumelang Saleshando has accused Botswana of being resource-cursed.

Debating a motion on the growing backlog of payments to suppliers caused by GABS in Parliament on Friday, Saleshando said Botswana is faced with what is called a resource curse which has come in the form of inefficiency and corruption.

The legislator said this when debating a motion that was tabled by the MP for Kanye North, Thapelo Letsholo, who had submitted a motion as an urgent public importance.

Letsholo had asked government to consider employing temporary staff to address the growing backlog of payments to suppliers caused by GABS and further that existing officers be encouraged to work overtime to expedite the clearance of this backlog by December 20.

Saleshando made the remarks in answer to Finance Minister, Peggy Serame’s response on the matter after she admitted there were corruption rumours surrounding the delay in payments. Serame revealed that recently she received a call from an entrepreneur who accused one of the officers of bribery in order to process his payment.

“We have started to work in shifts and to work at lunchtime which was necessitated by the situation we are faced with to speed up the orders. We have also advised employees to work on weekends.

We have 237 employees and in addition, we have 33 interns adding up to a total of 270 hence it is not part of the solution to hire temporary workers,” she said.

For medium to long-term solutions, Serame said they have plans to automate the whole process of the payment system. This will allow for invoices to be submitted online and use mobile payments to speed up payment turnaround time from the initial 10 to five working days.

“This is a serious concern, we have a ministry with a backlog of 600,000 and another with 400,000 invoices. The system has been experiencing serious performance challenges.

The system became excessively slow to the point that it failed to process the normal operational requests,” Serame said. Saleshando further accused the government of not having a plan to run the country because they have been given the responsibility to do so, but they are failing as businesses are collapsing because of GABS.

“There is something that economics call ‘resource curse’, a situation where you think since you have resources or riches is a blessing whilst it also is a curse as it is the case in most countries with abundance of natural resources having less economic growth.

If you continue doing things the way you are doing, this complaint will not stop soon,” he said. He further accused the government of having staffed civil servants with people who are not necessarily appointed on merit. Saleshando said people are not hired on competency, but on the basis that they are trusted by the ruling party. “This ruling party does not have a plan. A lot of businesses are collapsing every day because there is no cash flow.

There is no sabotage as they claim. Part of the problem of this leadership is that they do not accept responsibility when things go wrong, they accuse people of sabotage,” Saleshando said. The Botswana Congress Party president further stated that he was disappointed that Serame was applauding Letsholo for tabling the motion, accusing her of sleeping on the job.

“This is so embarrassing, a whole Minister stating to be happy to have been advised to hire temporary workers. You are sleeping on the job and you are not doing this alone, but with the government that has appointed you the Minister of Finance,” Saleshando said.

Other MPs conceded that issues surrounding GABS should be treated as a matter of urgency because businesses are collapsing something that will badly affect the economy. In the end, the motion was passed.