12 Aug 2026

Botswana’s public service should modernise its workplaces to accommodate employees’ family responsibilities and embrace flexible ways of working instead of treating workers merely as production machines, Chief Executive Officer of AFRINEX Limited Mauritius, Mr Thapelo Tsheole, has said.

Speaking at the 2nd Annual Botswana Public Service Leadership Conference, Mr Tsheole said an excessive focus on task delivery was coming at the expense of employee wellbeing and, ultimately, long-term performance.

“We do not have a work environment that accommodates family here.
That is something we need to address,” he said, noting that workplace flexibility and work-life balance had become defining issues for the global workforce.

Drawing on his experience leading the Botswana Stock Exchange, Rwanda’s Capital Market Authority and now AFRINEX in Mauritius, Mr Tsheole said institutions across the continent were increasingly adopting models that protected employees’ family time without compromising efficiency.
He described Botswana’s public servants as intelligent and educated adding that the country’s relatively low levels of corruption compared with other African countries could be attributed partly to its strong emphasis on compliance and controls.

However, he said the strong rule-based culture could also contribute to delays in adopting new ways of working, embracing innovation and deploying technologies that could improve the workplace.

Mr Tsheole observed that Botswana demonstrated its ability to adopt new working methods during the COVID-19 pandemic, including remote working, but quickly reverted to traditional practices once the pandemic subsided.

“The world is moving in different directions,” he said, stressing the need for Botswana to strike a balance between compliance and embracing change.

He said although public offices were accessible to the general public, service delivery is not as efficient in some other countries.

Mr Tsheole further stressed the importance of accountability in the public service, saying every thebe spent should be accounted for and performance measured against clear outputs. He said execution accountability should apply at both political and administrative leadership levels, with leaders expected to set clear targets and deliver measurable outcomes.

On digital transformation, Mr Tsheole said some countries had moved ahead by adopting web-based office management systems through which services, including payments, could be accessed and completed online.

He said Botswana had greater potential but was not taking full advantage of available opportunities, adding that government needed to move faster in digitising public services.

Meanwhile, Director of the Directorate of Public Service Management (DPSM), Ms Gaone Macholo, said the conference had achieved wide outreach, attracting more than 2 500 participants physically, online and through social media platforms.

She said the conference came at a time when the public service needed to reposition itself as a disciplined delivery engine capable of responding to rising citizen expectations amid increasingly constrained fiscal conditions. She added that while the number of activities and programmes undertaken was significant, the true measure of success should be the actual outputs and outcomes achieved. The two-day 2nd Annual Botswana Public Service Leadership Conference is held under the theme “Year of Delivery.” ENDS