26 Mar 2015

Lobatse assistant district commissioner, Mr Geoffrey Gare, has implored government supplies officers to work together to manage government assets.

Addressing supplies officers in a quarterly review meeting, Mr Gare advised officers to form a universal committee that cut across all government departments to ensure proper communication and information sharing.

A working as a committee, Mr Gare said, could assist officers to help each other tackle challenges they face on their daily duties and thus enhance productivity in the work place. “There is no need to work in silos, but rather choose to work together to bring positive results as it has proven that combined resources lead to achieving more with less,” he said.

Mr Gare said he was surprised that from the advice he gave the employees to form a supplies committee, last year, it seems there has been nothing done to that effect as the committee had not taken off, as it neither had a progress report.
A committee, when formed and working effectively would even assist in holding occasions such as auction sales collectively to maximise resources, he said.

Still on auction sales, Mr Gare said it was important for officers to desist from keeping unusable materials in their offices as this lead to un-conducive working environment.

He expressed concern at some officers who leave government assets which have reached auction state to lie around unused and subjected to rough conditions, saying these leads to some of these assets being damaged and unusable.

Mr Gare also implored supplies officers to ensure that they meet government deliverables that have been set to be achieved by 2019, of which one of them is employment creation.
To this effect, he said government has come up with initiatives such as Poverty Eradication, Youth Development Fund and Out of School Education and Training to try and address the unemployment rate in the country.

He therefore implored supplies officers to ensure that they create a market for the beneficiaries of these initiatives to boost their business operations and empower them.
The officers however raised some concerns that at times they find it difficult to procure from local companies especially owned by youth as they mostly do not comply to requirements to satisfy supplies requisites.

They also expressed concern on the centralised process of procurement, saying it at times disadvantages some local businesses, as some products would have been procured from their office headquarters.
Responding to the concerns, Mr Gare said he was willing to vie for the decentralisation of the procurement process and therefore advised officers to create confidence in him and all the relevant authorities that indeed they can handle procurement processes with ease and all diligence. ENDS