27 Feb 2022

Ministry of Health and Wellness employees have been advised to shun any corrupt practices

Giving a keynote address at the ministry’s corruption prevention pitso in Gaborone on Thursday, Assistant Minister Sethomo Lelatisitswe said, in recent months they saw allegations and insinuations from both mainstream and social media that their ministry was among the most corrupt.

He said the ministry required everyone’s efforts to ensure it eradicated such labels and win public’s confidence.

Mr Lelatisitswe said corruption free workplace needed employees to conduct their business in a clean, corrupt free manner and by shunning corruption in all its forms and manifestations.

The assistant minister said corruption taking place at the workplace should be prevented or even eliminated, adding that the Corruption Perceptions Index ranked countries and territories based on how corrupt their public sector was perceived to be.
He said a country or territory’s score indicated the perceived level of public sector corruption on a scale of zero (highly corrupt) to 100 (very clean) and Botswana scored 60 compared to 61 in previous years and said such meant comparatively in 2021 the level of corruption in the country raised.
“Today’s pitso should allow us to have a sober discussion and analysis of the ministry activities over the past year and even earlier.
We should honestly and fairly evaluate our processes and activities to determine if they helped us fight corruption or there are some gaps that we need to hasten to close,” said Mr Lelatisitswe .

He said they should be free and openly discussed the policies, processes, guidelines and eventually come up with preventative measures that could help the ministry perform better stating that the documents are there to assist them to comply with the laid down policies, procedures and processes to curb unwanted practices.

Mr Lelatisitswe said the pitso was important because the ministry was entrusted with public funds that needed to be safeguarded at all costs and adhered to principles of corporate governance.

In her welcoming remarks, the permanent secretary in the ministry, Ms Grace Muzila said the fight against corruption has become a top global priority and it was also a priority for the government and ministry.

Ms Muzila said as a ministry they could not achieve their vision and mission without closing all the gaps that allowed corruption to reign.

She said corruption was not merely the domain of powerful gangs shown in Mafia movies, or of large-scale schemes exposed by mainstream media but happened at all levels of society, in big and in small affairs, manifesting itself in numerous ways.

Ms Muzila said bribery, embezzlement, extortion, money laundering, conflicts of interest, the trading of influence, abuse of functions, and the obstruction of justice amounted to corruption.

The Permanent Secretary said the problem reclined not only in the scope of corruption, but in how much was actually being done to contain it. ENDS