16 Mar 2022

The Office of the Ombudsman has registered an overall case completion of 42.7 per cent by February this year.

Assistant Minister for Presidential Affairs, Governance and Public Administration, Mr Dumezweni Mthimkhulu revealed this to legislators in his presentation of the budget estimates for the office of the Ombudsman for the 2022/2023 financial year on March 15.

“The total case load for the financial year 2021/2022, that is the total number of new cases plus those carried forward from the previous years was 1 238 of which 528 were completed, representing an overall completion rate of 42.7 per cent at the end of February 2022,” he said.

He attributed the low resolution rate to COVID-19 and some restrictions that hindered the Office of the Ombudsman from implementing interventions aimed at reducing turnaround times.

He said the interventions that the Ombudsman had planned to implement included face to face consultative meetings and heads of department summons.

He added that in an effort to promote service efficiency, the Office of the Ombudsman invested in procurement of information communication technology equipment for senior management and legal investigators.

Again, he said the office had embarked on a project to automate its case management processes to improve efficiency and customer satisfaction.

“When fully implemented the automated case management system would be able to support customers consistently, accurately, effectively and most importantly timeously. The project is undertaken jointly with the government online office,” he said.

Tasked with the mandate to investigate complaints and allegations of maladministration against government departments and state owned agencies as well as recommend remedial actions to address any injustices suffered, Mr Mthimkhulu added that the Office of the Ombudsman thus served as one of the key contributors to good governance, democracy and the rule of law in Botswana.

That, he added was because it constantly held government ministries and departments to account for their actions and remedy any injustice caused to members of the public.

“The Ombudsman constantly checks on the legality and fairness of the government decisions through its investigations thereby providing checks on possible abuse of power,” he said.

On the proposed budget for the 2022/2023 financial year, the assistant minister said under the recurrent budget, funds would cater for uptake of the Office of Ombudsman’s human rights mandate, running costs, facility maintenance and procurement of equipment.

Under the development budget, he said funds would be used to complete the Maun office project, design and layout of the Palapye office as well as development of the case management system.

Meanwhile, Mr Mthimkhulu proposed estimates comprising over P43 million (P43,642,730) and P14.8 million to cover the office’s recurrent and development budget respectively in the next financial year. Parliament subsequently approved the estimates. ENDS