Kwelagobe carries the day at BOPEU meeting

And the burly man affectionately known as 'DK' is a man who does not mince his words.
This came across when he was the guest of honour at the annual general meeting of the Botswana Public Employees Union (BOPEU) at Mater Spei College here on Tuesday. When DK was invited to the podium, he made it clear to the Director of Ceremonies that he did not want a certain song preceding his speech.

Instead, he seemed to prefer a poem that was rattled off by gifted bard from the audience.

While Kwealgobe a prepared speech in English, he mainly spoke in rich metaphorical Setswana, poking mullock at unproductive public servants referred to as deadwood in the not-so-distant past. But the Setswana was also employed as a tactic not to be understood by visiting trade unionists, especially when the subject was the unbridled love of money of civil servants.

To drive the point home about poor work ethic in Botswana, Kwelagobe said he had launched a publication on Public Service Customer Standards last June and had been addressing public officers and civil and community leaders on it. He had also undertaken spot checks on some departments and was terribly disappointed with the implementation of the standards.

'I continue to receive calls of frustrations from members of the public who complain about the unsatisfactory performance of public officers,' he charged. 'Lona le nna le kokoroga mo le re 'madi madi'! (And you can saunter around yelling 'money, money'!'
Kwelagobe said one of the ironies of his spot checks was that the front desk staff of his own ministry did not know about the customer standards even though they were two years old. And when he asked a director why he was not implementing the customer standards, the answer came back that the man had been on the job only 60 days!
'After 30 days I went to check if the customer standards were being implemented, only to find that the director has asked to be transferred,' Kwelagobe said. 'Still curious to know why this particular department in his ministry was under-performing, DK he enlisted the support of one of his permanent secretaries. department.

'The reasons the Permanent Secretary got for underperformance of the department was that it was understaffed,' he said. The minister found this shocking because there were 60 vacancies in the particular department and more than 200 vacancies, 'including industrial class posts', in the ministry. 'But you will hear someone rant 'madi madi!''
There was no reason it should take three years, as it often did, for retirees to get their terminal benefits, Kwelagobe said. This was regrettable because have to serve three months' notice before they may retire.

The minister recalled an incident in the early 1970s when the predecessor of BOPEU, the Botswana Civil Service Association (BCSA), objected to the presence of 'sleuths' in its AGM. 'I protested when members of Special Branch were asked to leave, reasoning that members of the Special Branch were also civil servants!'

Kwelagobe had asked Lekalake, who was then the Director of Personnel, to attend the five-day convention at which 30 resolutions were adopted. But on asking Lekalake why the concerns expressed in some of the resolutions had not been addressed, Lekalake said he had never been approached about them.

And the man who had earlier found a certain song unacceptable belted out the very tune as he left podium. With vigour of voice, DK left everyone beside themselves when he chanted the now notorious, now famous 'Madi, Madi!'.