29 Nov 2018

President Dr Mokgweetsi Masisi has enumerated measures and mechanisms that government continues to undertake to defeat corruption in Botswana.

Speaking during the African Union high level dialogue on democracy, human rights and government, Dr Masisi said Botswana had developed standards for corruption risk management as a foundation for the execution of an effective anti-corruption programme.

Government, he said was committed to introducing a combination of new legislation and ethical codes including declaration of assets and liabilities to further enhance transparency.

In addition, he said a Declaration of Assets and Liabilities Bill had been drafted and was being prepared for presentation to Parliament.

To fight corruption, President Masisi said there must be strong political will including promulgation of supporting legislative frameworks and the development of administrative as well as institutional anti-corruption capacity requirements.

He noted that government had therefore established oversight institutions such as Directorate on Corruption and Economic Crime, Office of the Ombudsman, Botswana Unified Revenue Service, Botswana Police Service,  Public Procurement and Asset Disposal Board, Competition Authority and Directorate on Public Prosecutions.

Efforts from the institutions, he said, had gone a long way in ensuring that public resources were managed prudently.

Further, President Masisi said the long-standing peace, democracy and good governance that Botswana was often cited for, had contributed a lot towards the fight against corruption.

The president noted that Botswana had over the years received favourable accolades in the area of good governance and had accordingly received good ratings from agencies such as Transparency International.

“Batswana, in their respective communities, have always had a Kgotla system, which is a community level participatory governance system through which public opinion, consultation, adoption of key decisions, as well as arbitration are processed,” he said.

He said the Kgotla system had maintained social cohesion and unity in various communities and promoted freedom of expression and equality before the law.

Dr Masisi said government had managed to infuse the Kgotla system into the modern day democratic process such that it continued to play its important role at the community and national levels and was therefore the foundation of Botswana’s democratic institutions. Ends