30 Jul 2019

The Minister of Defence, Justice and Security, Mr Shaw Kgathi said the decision to rationalise salary structures for members of the disciplined forces in April 2019 was meant to address  discrepancies in the pay structures of the Botswana Defence Force, Botswana Police Service and Botswana Prisons Services.

Mr Kgathi told Parliament on July 29 that  the net effect of the rationalisation exercise was to move the entry levels of members of the disciplined forces such as privates, warders and constables from B3 to B1 scale,hence the nickname ‘Touch Forward and Ntlole’ as the rationalisation was commonly referred to by the members of the disciplined forces.

He also said the amendment of the Prisons Act conferred all administrative authority and the accountability for the Prisons Department on the commissioner, as opposed to the old Act, where he reported to the permanent secretary.

Accordingly, the position of the commissioner has been regraded from F2 to F1 salary scale while the deputy commissioners were regraded from E2 to F2 salary scale.
Concerning the Botswana Defence Force, Minister Kgathi said rationalisation led to the rank of Major moving from D2 to D1 with Lieutenant Colonel and Colonel moving to E2 to E1 respectively.

This had a resultant effect on all ranks below Lt Colonel by two grades up.

He further  said the Botswana Police Service, rationalisation was realised by closing the gap between the Station Commander D3 and Officer Commanding D1 and moving the Commissioner from F1 to F0 scale, this had pull up the effect to all ranks below.

Mr Kgathi said there was never an agreed report on new salary scale for disciplined forces in 2010 as result it would be erroneous to implement a report that never existed and consequently the aspect of backdating did not  arise. Since the decision to rationalise salaries for disciplined forces was taken this year, the issue of back pays would not arise.

Minister Kgathi was responding to Gaborone North MP Mr Haskins Nkaigwa who had wanted to know when the report on the new salary scales for members of the disciplined forces was adopted.

Secondly, Mr Nkaigwa asked the minister if he was aware that the report was never implemented due to economic recession since it was agreed to with government in 2010 and why the implementation of the report was not backdated since the economy had improved. Ends