14 Mar 2018

Assistant Minister for Presidential Affairs, Governance and Public Administration Mr Thato Kwerepe says the Office of the Ombudsman has experienced a backlog of cases.

Mr Kwerepe stated when presenting the 2018/19 financial year budget proposal for the Office of the Ombudsman amounting to P45.5 million on Tuesday that the case backlog stood at 949 by January this year.

He explained that out of the 583 new cases received by January of the current financial year, the Ombudsman managed to resolved 254 only.

“The Ombudsman is concerned about backlog and has come up with initiatives towards eradicating it. These initiatives include among others, closer engagement with accounting officers to deepen understanding of the process of complaint and resolution, the appointment of desk officers at senior level for greater accountability in government ministries and submission of monthly case updates by ministries to the Ombudsman,” said the assistant minister.

Mr Kwerepe pointed that the Office of the Ombudsman addressed 40 Kgotla meetings in targeted villages and settlements during the current financial year to carry out public education and complaint intakes.

However, he said those traditional methods of reaching out to the public were not effective as few people attended.

He therefore said the Ombudsman had started using modern and effective methods of information, education and communication dissemination such as using radio jingles, television fillers and Facebook platform.

“The Ombudsman shall endeavour to expand usage of these tools while continuously looking for more effective ways of information dissemination and accessibility of services to our people,” he said.

Furthermore, he said the office was working on introducing a system of investigation that would see cases resolved within a maximum of five months.

Mr Kwerepe said the P45.5 million  budget, he was proposing for the Office of the Ombudsman comprised P30.5 million  recurrent expenditure and P15 million development estimates.

He said the development budget would cover pre-construction works for the Maun and Tsabong offices, as well as actual construction services in Maun.

The funds, he added would also support the refurbishment of Lot 21 building in Gaborone, currently co-occupied by the office of the Ombudsman and the Land Tribunal.

Contributing to the debate of the budget proposal, Gabane-Mmankgodi MP Major General Pius Mokgware said oversight institutions like the Office of the Ombudsman should be resourced sufficiently to effectively carry out their oversight duties. He pointed that the P45.4 million proposed by the minister was little.

“If we are serious about promoting accountability in this country, we should show by the way we resource our oversight institutions. The Ombudsman is an important institution in this country. We should also find out whether the Act gives the Ombudsman enough powers.

Currently, when the Ombudsman tries to call permanent secretaries for meetings they come at their own time because the Ombudsman lack powers,” he said.

The legislator further expressed concern that some ministries ignored recommendations from the Ombudsman.

Specially Elected MP, Ms Bogolo Kenewendo, attributed the backlog mentioned by the assistant minister to lack of efficiency in the handling of cases.

She said the country could no longer afford the huge backlog experienced by the Ombudsman. She further expressed concern at government ministries which failed to come for meetings arranged by the Ombudsman. “They are showing lack of respect to this oversight office. This worries me because if an oversight institution is not given the respect that it deserves then we are seeing a little bit of dust being thrown to transparency and accountability in this country,” she said.

She said ministries failing to appear when called to account by oversight bodies should be held to be in contempt of Parliament.

MP for Tati East, Mr Guma Moyo said the Office of the Ombudsman should be capacitated and strengthened to enable it to continue carrying out its mandate effectively.

While she expressed her support for the budget proposal, Serowe South MP Dr Pelonomi -Venson Moitoi was also of the view that the money was little.

The budget was endorsed on Tuesday. Ends