03 Apr 2019

Assistant Minister for Presidential Affairs, Governance and Public Administration, Mr Machana Shamukuni says 7 561 civil servants have retired from the public service in the last five years up to December 2018.

Mr Shamukuni said the shortest time taken for one to receive her/his one third pension was three months while the longest time could take up to 24 months.

Mr Shamukuni highlighted that the payment of monthly pension was dependent on the processing of the one third lump sum payment.

He said various causes of the delay in the payment of pension to retirees were both administrative and employee related.

“Administrative delays are caused by among other things, missing pension contributions, missing information in personal files and termination of retiring officers from payroll because termination facilitates processing of benefits,” he said.

Regarding employee related delays, he said they included vacating institutional or pool housing, outstanding liabilities and failure to comply with tax regulations.

He told Parliament that he was not satisfied with the turnaround time for payment of terminal benefits.

Mr Shamukuni, however, said the ministry constituted a task team in January 2019 comprising the Directorate of Public Service Management, Ministry of Finance and Economic Development and Botswana Public Officers’ Pension Fund for purposes of resolving the challenges.

He said the task team was expected to complete its assignment in September 2019.

The MP for Selebi Phikwe West, Mr Dithapelo Keorapetse had wanted an update on the number of civil servants who had retired from the public service in the last five years.

He also wanted to know the shortest and longest time one had to wait to receive their one third of pension and monthly payments, and the causes of the delay.

The minister was also to state if he was satisfied with the turnaround time for the payment of terminal benefits, and to explain how he was addressing the problem. Ends