11 Dec 2017

President Lt Gen. Dr Seretse Khama Ian Khama has commended the accomplishments attained by Botswana in the fight against corruption.

Speaking during commemoration of the UN International Anti-Corruption Day in Gaborone yesterday (December 11), President Khama said such attainments included high prosecution rates and continuous anti-corruption awareness and prevention programmes.

He said Botswana had made great strides in combating corruption, which had resulted in international agencies rating the country among least corrupt nations in the world. At number 35 in the world out of 176 assessed countries, President Khama pointed that Botswana was ahead of some developed countries in the fight against corruption.

He said the accomplishments were a result of commitment and seriousness put in by government over the past two decades in the fight against corruption.

Further, he noted that the establishment of oversight institutions such as Directorate on Corruption and Economic Crime (DCEC), Financial Intelligence Agency, Competitions Authority and Public Procurement and Asserts Disposal Board (PPADB) contributed a lot in the attainments made in the fight against corruption.

“The government of Botswana through the DCEC has worked tirelessly for the past 23 years tracking the scourge of corruption in our society. During the early years of the DCEC the most common form of corruption then was bribery when exchange of money for a favour was a common thing,” he said.

He said while bribery continued to be the most common corruption offence in Botswana, trends had been shifting towards more complicated and complex offences.

“In recent times corruption hotspots include illicit land dealings, procurement of supplies with collusion between officers and bidders, the education sector where tertiary institutions received tuition for students who were no longer enrolled, deceased or purported to have failed, and of course there are concerns over fraudulent acquisition of drivers licenses,” he said.

He further said the emerging trend in the construction sector where some government officials connived with contractors to swindle government of millions of Pula was another area of concern.

President Khama warned that if left unchecked, corruption could slowly bring the economy to its knees.

“Corruption is one of the major impediments of development and good governance and it undermines democracy and the rule of law. Corruption slows economic development. Furthermore corruption distorts equitable allocation of services to the people,” he explained.

He said further demonstration of government’s commitment to fight corruption was the 2013 establishment of corruption courts in order to address corruption related cases.

Minister for Presidential Affairs, Governance and Public Administration, Mr Eric Molale said preventing corruption was beneficial to the current and future generations.

“By fighting corruption we are protecting the scarce public resources, which should be enjoyed by us all” Mr Molale said.

He therefore urged the nation to continue fighting corruption in every way possible to root it out of the society. United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) resident representative, Ms Jacinta Barrins said huge amounts of money were paid on bribery every year.

She said corruption had negatively impacted on provision of social services, socio-economic development and creation of employment around the world. She said poor people were the most vulnerable to impacts of corruption.

Director general of DCEC, Mr Victor Paledi said good systems had been put in place to prevent corruption and urged every Motswana to fight the problem. ENDS