WITHOUT FEAR OR FAVOUR Procurement officers, not BDP, are corrupt

By Opinion Piece On May 27, 2020

It is Joseph Gabalebatse's opinion that Supplies officers give Government a bad name

BY JOSEPH GABALEBATSE

I refuse to sing the chorus ya ‘BDP is corrupt.’ I am not necessarily suggesting that they aren’t but I refuse to take my eyes off the ball and blame the BDP for every corrupt practice. Sometimes we just ought to say the truth as it is without fear or favour.
My experience as a small scale ‘tenderer’ is that it is mainly the government officials who are corrupt to the core. Ke gore ka Setswana ke mo go tweng ba hemisitswe e bile ba kgaeditswe ke corruption. Blaming every corrupt practice on the BDP government is, according to me, disingenuous.

It starts off with Supplies /Procurement officers all the way to those who award tenders. This is how it works and they casually call it ‘mokopelo’ meaning ba kopetse job. The Supplies Officer makes sure only certain companies get invited to tender. Usually these are either owned by one person but with different ‘Directors’ or it is companies owned by friends and will ‘compete’ amongst each other. This is where inflation of prices starts . For a job that could have cost P10 000, ba a e ‘kopela‘ and the lowest bidder will charge P100 000, compete with his friends and win then each will have a share of the profit.
If it is for a job that requires tendering through Government Gazette or newspapers, the corrupt officials will give their preferred companies ‘codes/rates’. This will help them know how much to tender for such a job. They usually refer to it as ‘Go pagolla tendera’ cos they would have had inside info gore ba tendare jang with full knowledge that lona ba bangwe lo senya nako spending sleepless nights lo dira tendara . All that is left is for him to use ‘codes/rates’ provided by corrupt officials go ‘pagolla tendara‘.
I therefore refuse to blindly sing the ‘BDP is corrupt’ song when i know it is mostly government officials especially ba procurement who are corrupt to the core.
I always see guys forming companies, then ba taboga mo ba dropa business profiles and business cards. Guys you are wasting your time, energy and meagre resources. Di job di ‘KOPETSWE‘ and gore o di kopolle ke mmereko.
The government should start off ka Supplies /Procurement officers because they give the government a horribly bad name.