02 Aug 2016

Debswana’s total direct employment stands at 5 385 with two per cent of the positions held by expatriates. 

Minister of Minerals, Energy and Water Resources, Mr Kitso Mokaila said, “this translates to 105 people, adding that  Debswana continue to employ some expatriates primarily because of limited supply of suitable citizens and experienced for some positions.”

Responding to a parliamentary question on Monday from the Member of Parliament for Boteti East, Mr Sethomo Lelatisitswe the minister said Debswana’s localisation plan “is delivered every three years, discussed with the union and representatives of none unionised employees and presented jointly to the department of labour”.

Furthermore, the minister said, “the plan identifies potential successors for expatriate positions and the time it will take to develop them.” 

Parliament was informed that the development plan included focused training and on the job training for any identified successor within the company. 

He, however said, where no successors were identified internally, they recruited externally or offered scholarships to develop skills that were not available in the market.

“Every function has succession plans which cover expatriate held positions and these are reviewed annually.  Debswana business, especially in the project space is more complex and requires certain skills and experience that are often not available locally,” he said.

He stated that although they continued to use expatriates in that space, extensive efforts were underway to capacitate citizens through programmes such as secondments to international companies,” he said.

Minister Mokaila noted that one of the company’s key policy was to embrace diversity as that improves productivity and innovation, adding that diversity was promoted at all levels including gender, nationality and age.

“It is not the intention of government to buy out private investors or nationalise mines in Botswana. Such a move would have a negative effect to the country’s mineral investment attractiveness as it will drive away the much required investment to find new prospecting projects and on-going investments in existing operation. 

Such a move will lead to a decline in mineral sector,” he said.

Mr Mokaila further explained that the price of buying out De Beers from Debswana was not known at this stage because the government had not valued the asset, adding that the process of establishing such a price was determined by a number of factors which include willingness of the other party to sell, agreed valuation of the asset by the parties involved through an independent valuation and contractual agreements already in place.

He said no money was being lost to De Beers because they got what they were legally and commercially entitled to, also noted that there was no plan or policy to nationalise any mine, therefore the issues of advantages and disadvantages of such a move does not arise.  

MP Lelatisitswe had asked the minister if he was aware that Debswana operations at its mines (Jwaneng, Orapa-Letlhakane and Damtshaa) have fully localised except for a few posts.

He also wanted to know the number of posts held by foreigners and why.

The Boteti East legislator also wanted to know Debswana’s localisation plan regarding the posts per section and if it was not the right time for government to form a private company to run mining operations currently under Debswana taking advantage of experience and skilled manpower that exists. 

He also asked how much it would cost government to buy off De Beers shares at its above operations and how much money was being lost to De Beers as profit share.

MP Lelatisitswe further wanted to know the advantages and disadvantages of buying off the De Beers shares and enquired on when would that happen. ENDS