26 Jun 2024

 President Dr Mokgweetsi Masisi has advised Office of the Ombudsman to take advantage of digitised platforms to improve their visibility and access to rural communities.

Receiving Ombudsman report covering 2021/2022 and 2022/2023 financial years yesterday, President Masisi said he was pleased to receive report which would provide a glimpse of opportunities and challenges as well as the level of services rendered by government to the general public.

He said contents of the report would be used effectively for front loading interventions to identified challenges through various ministries.

Dr Masisi said government departments such as Directorate of Public Service Management (DPSM) must take advantage of insights highlighted by the report to among others identify skills gap, levels of authority and competence issues resulting from financial challenges.

He said it was important for the Ombudsman to emphasise on educating the general populace on the office’s services by taking advantage of digital platforms. He said the Ombudsman must emulate what Parliament was doing through SmartBots on a platform called Botswana Speaks where legislators interact with the community with ease.

Dr Masisi said embracing technology could improve the office’s outreach and service delivery.

He added that the public media was another platform that would go a long way in assisting their accessibility to the people and various sectors across the country. In addition, President Masisi said the amended act of the Ombudsman gave birth to additional responsibility of dealing with human rights issues.

Therefore, he said it was important for the Ombudsman to be well equipped with necessary resources and personnel as well as substantive funding to effectively execute the human rights mandate.

He said in a democratic nation, it was important to adequately respond to issues of human rights, and therefore equally important that the Ombudsman office in its out reach activities be able to immediately investigate cases received.

President Masisi advised the Ombudsman to utilise data generated by Statistics Botswana to understand the scope of the population they were able to cover currently, identify challenges and means of expanding their scope.

Meanwhile the Ombudsman, Advocate Stephen Tiroyakgosi said the report was focused on the cases handled,  their nature and the number of cases received for the years 2021/2022 and 2022/2023.

On average, he said Ombudsman received 1 200 cases annually and was able to complete about 48 per cent in a year, the shortfall due to various reasons including availability of information required to complete the case at the time.

Adv. Tiroyakgosi said currently the Ombudsman had four offices across the country at Gaborone, Tsabong, Maun and Francistown and therefore engaged in other means of reaching out to the people such as workshops.

Adv. Tiroyakgosi said cases received included complaints on compensation not being enough and or delayed assistance when one lost livestock to prey animals.

He said some were delays in relation to land issues and public officers on transfers, non-payment or delayed payment of certain allowances and opportunities for training. ENDS