Africa-Press – Botswana. Outsourcing of services provides greater value for money in terms of cost and quality of services Assistant Minister of Health (MoH), Mr Sethomo Lelatisitswe has said
Speaking at the ministry’s Corruption Prevention Pitso in Gaborone recently, he explained that in order to achieve efficient service delivery the ministry had resolved to outsource some of its services. “When we outsource time consuming tasks to third-party service providers, we have more time to focus on offering our patients quality care they deserve,” he said.
He said outsourcing in many ways contributed to the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goal 8, which promoted decent work, employment creation, social protection, rights at work and social dialogue.
He highlighted that the ministry was committed to ensuring that local manufacturers, suppliers and contractors were prioritised thereby creating employment in the value chain.
Minister Lelatisitswe said MoH some of the outsourced services included, clinical and non-clinical services such as laundry, catering, cleaning, facility management, emergency assistance, specialised medical services and security services. The exercise, he said was done in fair and transparent manner.
He further said the ministry spent an estimated P314 million in the 2022/23 financial year as payment for outsourced services, adding that they were willing to outsource more services so that they directed their attention towards their core mandate.
Nonetheless, he said the exercise was not without challenges, adding that they had realised that some of their internal controls were weak.
Other challenges included lapses in compliance to procurement regulations and service level agreements that led to continuous direct appointments leading to overpricing by service providers, connivance, fraud, breach of contracts and poor quality.
Hence he appealed to anti-corruption committees to come up with appropriate measures that would strengthen their internal controls to avert malpractices.
“Let us ensure that service level agreements are developed and signed at the beginning of an outsourcing relationship, thereafter these should be monitored to measure supplier performance and efficiency,” he said.
He further urged officers not wait for the end of the contract if the supplier was not delivering, but rather terminate saying failing to take action was likely to lead to corruption.
“Therefore if corruption creeps in through outsourcing, we are likely to fail Batswana,” he emphasised.
He said the forum provided them with an opportunity to discuss matters openly and genuinely , spread anti-corruption message and share ideas and experiences on how best the ministry could be kept corruption free and other forms of malpractices.
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