Africa-Press – Botswana. The safekeeping of government premises and property is compromised by some private security companies’ failure or delay to pay employees.
The observation was made by the Chairperson of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC), Mr Wynter Mmolotsi on Thursday when examining the books of accounts for the financial year ending March 31, 2021 for the then Ministry of Defence, Justice and Security that it was a well-known trend that some private security companies faced challenges.
Mr Mmolotsi was concerned that despite their failure to fulfill employment contractual obligations with their employees, they continue to get their licenses renewed and do business with government.
The committee was also concerned by drug proliferation in the country. Mr Mmolotsi said he has never heard of a case where a drug load was arrested.
He said it was unfortunate to observe law enforcers seem to only arrest distributors and users. Mr Mmolotsi said the campaign against the entry and sale of habit-forming drugs must be intensified.
He said the future generation was doomed by the use of drugs.
On other issues relating to the status of refugees in the country, Mr Mmolotsi said some refugees have been in the country since the 1990s, therefore asking why government was not sponsoring their children who were born in the country to pursue their tertiary education. He said since they were born here, there was no other country that they were to consider as their home adding that such children never chose to be born under such circumstances, therefore were in dire need of assistance.
However, Mr Mmolotsi has acknowledged that the ministry was mandated a mammoth of a task. “You are dealing with difficult and sensitive issues of national interest,” he said.
Briefing the PAC and responding to questions from committee members, the Permanent Secretary in the now Ministry of Defence and Security, Ms Pearl Ramokoka said the then Ministry of Defence, Justice and Security was split into two after rationalisation, establishing a new Ministry of Justice.
Ms Ramokoka said during the year under review, the Dukwi Refugee Camp has a total of 725 inhabitants, a decline from the 933 of the previous year.
She said her Ministry will continue to service refugees at the camp.
However, Ms Ramokoka observed that during the financial year under review, her Ministry was overwhelmed by asylum seekers mostly from the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC).
She said her Ministry, working in conjunction with that of Labour and Home Affairs, was assessing each case based on its merit to find solutions to those seeking asylum.
Ms Ramokoka also added that trans-human trafficking was also a challenge, therefore stringent measures have been introduced, which included the development of anti-human trafficking plan to manage the situation.
In relation to dealing with drugs proliferation, Ms Ramokoka said they were focused on increasing urgency towards investigating drug related cases as well as increasing capacity to deal with ever changing trends of the drug relating criminal acts.
Ms Ramokoka said her ministry was only responsible for licensing private security companies and to ensure that they were not in violation of the laws that govern their operation.
She said issues relating to failure to pay their employees was dealt with under a different Ministry through the Industrial Court.
Ms Ramokoka said it was high time to maybe consider looking at their licensing requirements and ensure that those failing to pay employees and therefore compromising provision of a service that they were licensed to provide were accordingly dealt with.
Ms Ramokoka also added that the Military Veterans office was in the process of getting a Director to run its affairs and ensure that it was fully functional.
She said it was also important to come up with some means of empowering and supporting lower ranking officers of the Botswana Defence Force upon retirement as the law mandates them to retire at an early age of 45 years.
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