12 Jun 2022

Public servants have been urged to embrace digitisation to boost productivity in their workplaces. 

Addressing heads of department during a meet-and-greet session in Maun on Friday, the Minister for State President, Mr Kabo Morwaeng, said productivity was a catalyst for economic prosperity. 

Government, he said, wanted to improve service delivery across all sectors of the economy, and had identified digitalisation as a superior way of ensuring that happened. 

“We are living in a digitalisation era, hence we should change and adopt technology to speed up service delivery to our customers. We believe that technology can also facilitate our communities to live better lives,” he said. 

To achieve that, government had embarked on a nation-wide high-speed internet connectivity project that would see many communities, including the North West villages of Gumare, Shakawe, Seronga among others, receive free WIFI in some government facilities such as schools, libraries, clinics and dikgotla. 

Minister Morwaeng said connecting communities to the internet would also enable them to participate effectively in the economy. 

With regard to the recent rationalisation of ministries, the minister said the exercise was part of the Reset Agenda, which aimed to improve service delivery across government. 

Urging public officers to embrace the agenda, he said it was a call to a different and better approach to doing business. 

This he said, included finding new ways of implementing projects within budget and on time. Mr Morwaeng challenged accounting officers to be exemplary and cultivate the spirit of productivity to ensure services reached people. 

On other issues, the minister appreciated commitment and hard work demonstrated by public servants since the outbreak of COVID-19. 

He said in the true Reset spirit of prioritising lives, public servants rose to the occasion, and gallantly fought the disease. 

“…You gave up your lives to save this nation and ensure quality services were delivered to the public. 

And we really appreciate your efforts,” he said. 

Mr Morwaeng informed the officers that government was aware of the many challenges they faced in their endeavour to bring services to the people, and assured them that efforts were being made to improve their working conditions. 

For their part, supervisors they were greatly motivated by the minister’s meeting with them. 

However, they listed shortage of office space, transport and lack of decent accommodation as some of the impediments to service delivery. 

North West acting district commissioner, Mr Boammaruri Otlhogile who appreciated the government’s programmes in the district, said nonetheless there was much that needed to be done in terms of service delivery. 

Citing accommodation as one of the major issues that needed urgent attention, he said the problem was not easy to solve given the expanse of the district. 

Mr Otlhogile said as a result the district administration was compelled to have officers share houses, which brought conflict between them and the officers as most of those with families were reluctant to share. 

He said currently, they had 328 officers in the waiting list for accommodation against the district administration’s 190 pool houses, and 133 of Botswana Housing Corporation (BHC). 

He said institutions would do well to make staff accommodation part of their package when they built offices. 

He also decried the bad state of staff houses, saying although the Department of Housing had engaged BHC to maintain the houses, the exercise was slow. 

“It is frustrating as officers pay high rental to BHC while they live in dilapidated houses,” he said.

 Mr Oteng Seemule suggested the government should be careful not to separate couples as that led to conflict and divorce. BOPA