05 Mar 2014

The director of the Directorate of Public Service Management (DPSM), Mr Carter Morupisi has called on civil servants to change their attitudes towards work and be more productive.

Addressing civil servants in Selebi Phikwe on March 3, Mr Morupisi said the World Economic Forum did a labour force situation analysis in the country from 2008 to 2012 which indicated that the labour force in the country had poor work ethics.

He said Botswana was ranked 74 out of 146 countries. Also, Mr Morupisi said the Botswana National Productivity Centre survey analysis on civil service in the country showed that there was poor work ethics among civil servants.

He said public officers had chosen to work below their potential and not render services to the public efficiently and effectively.

Though he acknowledged that civil servants were experiencing challenges such as shortage of accommodation, transport, equipment and other meaningful resources when rendering services, he said that should not be an excuse for civil servants to drag their feet while on the job.

“Civil servants must utilise the available resources to provide services to the public,” he said. He further noted that bureaucracy in government have had a negative effect on service delivery.

He said processes followed in rendering services were long and time consuming. Thus, he said plans were afoot to come up with procedures and processes that would reduce time taken to provide services to client such as one stop service centre.

Mr Morupisi also noted that the country was still reeling from the effects of the world economic meltdown and that government coffers were very low. Thus, he said it was for that reason that government could not afford to increases civil servants’ salaries.

Currently, he said government has the highest number of employees standing at 130 000 hence government utilises P16 Billion annually on civil servants salaries and other benefits such as 15 percent and 50 per cent contributory pension fund and medical aid scheme respectively.

“Civil servants salaries take much of the P 40 billion recurrent budget the government makes annually,” he said. Also, he noted that government had to get loans from international sources such as the International Monetary Fund to complete some of development projects.

He explained that government was paying back the loans and chose not increase civil servants salaries. He said if salaries were to be increased the country could slip back into a deeper deficit.

The director indicated that government was in the process of amending the Public Service Act and requests civil servants to forward their opinions and input on how to make improvements.

He also called on good working relation between supervisors and supervisees adding that intimidation should not reign in offices.

He further urged supervisors to handle misunderstandings in the workplace timely to avoid further conflicts.

On issues of shortage of accommodation, Mr Morupisi said government would introduce an initiative where civil servants who have plots around the country would be allowed to request loans from banks guaranteed by government to build houses.

Those houses, he said would then be leased to government for civil servants.

He said funds accumulated from rentals would be used to repay the loans and some would go in to the home owners’ pockets.

“This is one way that government will mitigate shortage of civil servants accommodation while at the same time empowering civil servants who will be plot or house owners,” he said. ENDS