02 Mar 2014

Director of Directorate of Public Service Management (DPSM), Mr Carter Morupisi has implored government employees to promote constructive workplace engagements in order to enhance productivity.

Addressing government workers, from Ministries of State President, Local Government and Rural Development and Health, Mr Morupisi said constructive workplace engagements could positively change the image and the prospects of the ministries as all workers at different levels participated.

Mr Morupisi, who is on a nation-wide tour addressing civil servants on condition of service as well as briefing them on the general status of the country’s competitiveness in the world, among others, said constructive workplace engagement gave workers conducive setting to exchange views and observations on how they could improve their service as well as improving on their own welfare.

He, regretted that annual Global Competitiveness Report of 2013-14 placed Botswana at number 74 out of 144 countries assessed, something which he blamed on poor work ethics, lack of humility, dependability and lack of efficiency mostly amongst government workers who provide services to the people.

He, however, said the government would continue to find ways and avenues which could be used as mitigating factors, among others workshops to enhance the level of positive work habits across the entire public service.

Mr Morupisi said in addition to payment of salaries, government contribution to employees’ benefits was huge, citing leave concessions, pension, medical aid and maternity leave. He said low wages should not be used as a scape goat for not performing satisfactorily as this could lead to total collapse of the economy.

Mr Morupisi told the employees, who later on complained that their salaries were not able to sustain them to the extent that some of them were on zero pay, that conditions of service were being looked into noting that “be rest assured the executive is working on these conditions”.

The public service chief raised concern that some supervisors take long to attend to employees’ grievances even though some of the issues did not need much effort to be resolved.

Responding to some of the issues raised, Mr Morupisi said it was not possible to provide accommodation for all essential service workers close to their workplace because of other constraints.

He explained that in this regard, the government had introduced work shifts to ensure that there were always personnel around whenever there was an emergency.

One employee suggested that government should abandon the issue of salary increment but instead embark on restructuring salary scales as this could address many issues which include salary disparities among others.

Others said since they were converted to permanent and pensionable status they were unable to obtain salary advances to buy their children uniform.

They therefore said this issue should be looked into. ENDS