Time to drain the swamp

As he flew the OK1 across the seas to meet diamantaires in Europe, Belgium’s Antwerp to be precise, the most senior minister in Boko’s administration was telling the nation how the UDC will protect jobs and guard against victimizing civil servants on political ground. Even at the risk of being accused of impatience, it is interesting to observe that the new administration is slowly appearing fearful of effecting real change. Is Boko’s government afraid to effect change? 

More and more Batswana are getting agitated over the casual approach to making changes in strategic areas of government. More and more voices are calling for President Duma Boko to drain the swamp now otherwise the UDC government will suffer the consequences of procrastination. Drain the swamp is a metaphor that means to root out corruption. It is a phrase which has frequently been used by politicians since the 1980s and in the U.S. often refers to reducing the influence of special interests and lobbyists. 

It is a global political practice that political party that wins power is mandated to form government and appoint people in strategic positions to ensure it fulfils its promises to the nation. Elsewhere, we recently saw drastic changes and reshuffle when US President Donald Trump swiftly appointed key figures in his new government. In the United Kingdom, the Labour Party did the same. 

Perhaps this is done to avoid carrying people who may sabotage and discredit the new administration, and in turn give their preferred leaders who may now be wallowing in opposition a chance to regroup and regain power. To continue keeping people in power who are well known sympathisers of the past regime could harm the UDC fortunes going forward. 

Service delivery in government offices is often compromised by those who have stayed in office for too long to mistake it for the homes, perennial poor performers. Such dead wood should be cast aside, and new blood injected into state organs to function efficiently and improve service delivery. 

Already, we have seen an embarrassing situation in Parliament where a cabinet minister could not answer a straight forward question, which raises questions about support system and personnel in his office. Was he adequately resourced to respond to parliamentary questions or the personnel in his office failed him? Such lapses, may not necessarily be accidental, but deliberate sabotage to embarrass UDC ministers and their government. 

The Minister in the presidency has announced that the new government will reform some organs of government, among them the Directorate on Corruption and Economic Crimes (DCEC) Act, the Independent Electoral Commission (IEC), and the rogue Directorate of Intelligence and Security Services (DIS). In the past regime, we witnessed some shocking developments where some of these state organs behaved like a law unto themselves. Even those in charge of leading them often conducted themselves as if they were above the law, acting with impunity. More often than not, members of the public-the innocent citizens had to bear the brunt of such abuse of power and overreach.

The Ministry of Trade and Entrepreneurship has just announced that the same rogue DIS that, which has since establishment by Ian Khama administration, terrorized citizens of this country is investigating corruption allegations at CEDA following public protests. This is unsettling because of the history of the DIS behaving like a bull in a China shop! The DIS overreach is stuff of legends, and the UDC has repeatedly expressed concern about this over the years. Now, we are told that they are investigating allegations of corruption at CEDA. Are they not supposed to be an intelligence organ that feeds other arms of state security with such intelligence to enable them to conduct thorough investigations, among them the police and DCEC? One wonders, where is the DCEC? 

As an intelligence agency one wonders if the DIS even have the capacity and integrity to investigate complex corruption cases and related malfeasance. Are they not encroaching on police and DCEC jurisdiction? In fact, the DIS itself needs to be investigated. 

Under the new administration the sooner the DIS is ordered to focus on their core function of gathering intelligence, the better. Such intelligence can be shared with relevant organs for propriate action to prevent abuses of the past, where its leaders bragged that they do not report to anyone including the President. 

Is the UDC government pretending to be different? Why should UDC be expected to be different? So, President Duma Boko should drain the swamp ASAP before it is too late!