28 Mar 2021

Botswana Power Corporation (BPC) MASA 2020 strategy was carried out to improve the corporation’s effectiveness in service delivery and not for downsizing purposes.

Answering a question in Parliament on Thursday, Minister of Mineral Resources, Green Technology and Energy Security, Mr Lefoko Moagi said the exercise resulted in the need to exit some staff whose skills were no longer relevant to enable the corporation to bring new talent.

Mr Lefhoko said the corporation continuously reviewed its manning levels to align to business requirements to ensure service delivery, as a result the increase in manning levels was from 2082 during the financial year 2017/18 to 2177 in the financial year 2019/20.

“I would like to advice that BPC is not departing from the MASA 2020 strategy, which provided for outsourcing of cleaning, security and fleet services,” he said.

Further, the minister said the corporation outsourced other services such as maintenance, meter installation and inspection to supplement its existing capacity as and when the need arose.

Outsourcing of these services, he said, was not a permanent arrangement, saying it was only done to augment existing capacity in the short term to enhance service delivery.

He further explained that the outsourcing of some services was mainly done as a temporary measure in addressing maintenance backlogs and augmentation of the existing employees during inclement weather conditions in order to meet the turnaround times in restoring supply to customers.

He said meter installation and inspection was also outsourced to address customer connection turnaround times. “No employees are being rendered redundant by the outsourcing, which is meant to augment the existing staff complement in the interest of service delivery,” he said.

Regarding cleaning, security and fleet services, he said they were outsourced permanently for efficiency and effectiveness.

“Any other outsourcing is a temporary intervention to enhance service delivery as and when necessary,” he said.

Minister Moagi further said BPC would continue to review its manning levels as the network was being expanded to ensure optimal manning levels and up to standard customer service.

He told Parliament that his ministry would continue to ensure that the corporation pursued its strategic objectives in financial turnaround, service delivery, organisation effectiveness and zero harm as espoused in the MASA 2020 strategy.

“Notwithstanding the prevailing financial constrains being experienced by the corporation, BPC has been increasing staff salaries in line with general market trend in the country.

He said the previous salary increment was that of four per cent for executive and senior management, and six per cent for all other employees during financial year 2019/2020, and another increase of four per cent across the board for the current financial year (2020/2021).

He said the tariff increases were meant to provide revenue to the corporation to meet its mandate and not for staff salary adjustments as perceived.

Palapye Member of Parliament Mr Onnetse Ramogapi had asked the minister to explain why retrenchments were made with a view to downsize the number, but later the corporation employed more staff thus creating more costs.

Mr Ramogapi also wanted to know why BPC was departing from the MASA 2020 strategy, which stated that outsourcing could be done on three services only, that is cleaning, security, and fleet services.

He also asked if the minister was aware that outsourcing was done on the same jobs that could be performed by employees, creating more costs that led to unnecessary loss due to duplication of resources/expenditure.

He also wanted the minister to say what he was he doing to remedy the situation, providing timelines. ENDS