Welcome Katlholo, good luck catching butterflies

Kgosietsile Ngakaagae | Friday August 28, 2020 11:46

It’s a hot seat. The DCEC, is where career dreams go to die. No one is happy there. If you have never been fired or resigned, go to the DCEC. You will surely experience one of the two. None of the guys I worked closely with there 10 years ago, is still there. Well, if they are there, then they are hiding somewhere.  The young men and women there look like they are 200-years-old. I will not say much of older ones, to avoid offending cultural sensitivities. These are qualified and otherwise competent people. But life is hard. The agency is toxic. I look at them harass suspects, some my clients. The negative energy and bile is a manifestation of  a stress disorder. I can’t help but bleed for them. I digress.

Just the other day, Ernest Mosate was transferred to the DCEC as Deputy Director General. There were obviously some hopefuls there. The stress levels would have hit the high notes. But Ernest Mosate had to go there, I guess. The system is hoping that he is the cure to embarrassing stories, like that of Agent Butterfly which have led to an intractable mess. The very mess, Katholo is now called to clean. But, can he?

Well I know he can. Given a freehand, he can. At the same time I know he won’t. However much you try to clean up at the DCEC,  the nosey OP, will keep walking all over the floor. Eventually they sweep you out. Butterfly is not a DCEC problem. She is, an OP mess. The sad reality of it all, is that it didn’t have to be this way. Professionals are under pressure to achieve political outcomes. And that’s where Tymon Katlholo will have his hands full.

But then it is wrong to blame it all on the OP. Politicians are ravenous and nosey by nature. It is for professionals to defend institutions with their own integrity, where the laws are lax. A professional who allows a system to lay to waste his ethics deserves the fate the DCEC customarily metes upon its executives. For Katholo, it would be worse. They would not send him to that adult school at The Village where they discard people they don’t like. They would sweep him into the street.

The DCEC has spat out Rose Seretse, Bruno Paledi (who was given an obscure clerical work in some equally obscure ministry- Ed), and now Brigadier Mathambo in quick succession. Other notables include Eugene Wasetso, who is now in some ministry helping organise Friday morning prayers. By the way, Wasetso was a gentleman, which may well have been his major undoing. He simply didn’t have the requisite amount of bile, necessary for desired political outcomes. Had he remained there, he might have slowed things down, the Butterfly story might well have turned out differently. Instead of a P100 billion, we could well be talking of a figure within the realms of sanity. But politicians don’t like his variety.

Katholo has something that those who got fired before him, don’t have. He built the DCEC.  He left it in a fairly respectable condition. Rose Seretse sustained its momentum and did her cents worth. It is to her eternal credit that she investigated Cabinet Ministers, amongst others, some of whose files remain suppressed at the DPP. It is to her credit that she resisted the government of her in-laws, and stood her ground in key matters of principle until they fired her to BERA. True, there were challenges even then, just as there were challenges in Katholo’s reign. Since her departure, the DCEC has been utter confusion.

The former administration fought to capture it, but partially succeeded. The current administration, finished the job. Make no mistake about it, Katholo has not been recalled to reclaim the DCEC’s lost glory. He has been employed to cover its messes with his personal integrity. He is a PR tool, amongst other things. He would be expected to tow the line and deliver the outcomes. That would possibly be the end of his legacy. He will realise soon, if he hasn’t done that already, that he has simply been called to destroy what he built. That will be the challenge. He should see, how the Speaker of the National Assembly ran the parliamentary show upon arrival. He did it with the skill of a captain running a ship through a rocky channel. We were overawed. The ruling party, used to match-fixing on the parliamentary floor, were unhappy. Soon, we saw the Speakers decisions getting confused, suggesting he might be under pressure. The noise around his adjudication has subsided. I hope we were wrong in our suspicions.

But then, I personally think all is not lost. This unfortunate chapter in our nation’s history, that has seen three DCEC Director Generals, removed in quick succession, can pass. The DCEC owes no commitment to its mistakes. Neither does the OP. Sometimes it is better, simply, to retreat, reevaluate and regroup. The DCEC and OP advanced far into enemy territory without covering their supply routes. As a result, they are now fighting foreign governments on whom we rely for just about anything and everything. They must now blame South Africa, for Butterfly.  Welcome, Tymon Motlhasedi Katlholo. It has been a while. Good to see you back.