21 Jul 2013

Government should develop a framework for monitoring implementation of all policies, programmes and projects.

This was said by some Members of Parliament when debating the Engineers Registration (Amendment) Bill in parliament last week.

MPs argued that ministers should be held accountable for programmes and projects being implemented under their portfolio. 

In his debate, Selebi-Phikwe West MP, Mr Gilson Saleshando said accountability was one of the most important components of democracy, therefore laws should be made for ministers to also be held accountable if projects fall apart rather than shift all the blame to lower level officers.

“As much as we all agree that this bill is a step in the right direction, there is also a need for this Parliament to come up with similar laws that will help hold a minister responsible for a failed project,” he said.

Mr Saleshando stated that if those who govern could not be held accountable for the actions that they take or fail to take in the public domain, citizens will become vulnerable to all sorts of manipulation and abuse.

  He was of the view that accountability was an inherent contract between citizens and their governors whereby the rulers accept to take on certain responsibilities subject to potential sanctions for non-performance, thus they should be held accountable.

Ngwaketse West MP, Mr Mephato Reatile also said just like lawyers and other professions, there should be a law where officials and members of the government and even politicians not in office should be made to account, even for actions that transgress the law resulting in personal enrichment.

Mr Reatile said there was no point in handling with ‘kid gloves’ those employees who misappropriate government funds on unnecessary additional costs of projects.

He said there were companies involved in collusive tendering who did shoddy jobs when awarded tenders, hence there was need for stringent laws to bring such people and those that approved such projects to book. 

Kgatleng East legislator, Mr Isaac Mabiletsa concurred with his fellow MPs, saying there was also a need for government to introduce a ‘stolen property bill’ that would address issues of low quality work by engineers, adding that forming commissions has not yielded much as far as disciplining such people was concerned.

He said through an appropriate committee, MPs should be kept abreast of ongoing projects as that would help curb the misappropriation of funds.

Mr Mabiletsa welcomed the bill saying it would give ethical standards to anyone wanting to practice engineering in Botswana.

Francistown South MP, Mr Wynter Mmolotsi said due to the expensive nature of engineering mistakes, the Engineers Registration (Amendment) Bill was long overdue, adding that there should be a body to govern engineers.

“Government has lost a lot of money on finished but faulty projects therefore for these people to stick to a code of ethics, they should have a body that would govern them.” ENDS