Political Perspective : The PM’s Office And The Goblet Of Sources

IT took the Office of the Prime Minister long enough (over a month!) to respond to media reports about the salary fiasco concerning the Director and Deputy Director of the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) respectively.

The issue was not that the two officials were paid double salaries and bonuses in one case – this was not a fault of their own making – but that they’d been given huge amounts of time to pay back the amounts to Government, interest-free. And if they’d both spotted the errors immediately, as both they and the OPM claim was the case, then there seemed to be no reason why they couldn’t have repaid everything in one fell swoop.BUT perhaps the OPM shouldn’t have bothered at all with their ‘explanation’ which, apart from being sadly belated, saw nothing wrong with the whole saga and even accused the media of ‘a clear attempt to question the integrity’ of the ACC chiefs and imply they had acted ‘in a manner prejudicial to their status’.At the time of our report, both officials confirmed the double payments and that they were paying these back to Government in instalments.In my view the use of the monies by both officials, who claimed to have known immediately that erroneous double payments had been made, is what is questionable.Being the people they are and with the positions they hold, they should, even at the time they were taking up their posts in the ACC, been mindful of the repercussions of the error, and made sure that they paid it back immediately, and not settle for a payback period of two years! This may be excusable to people who don’t know better, but in their cases, I feel that the matter does reflect negatively on their integrity.And as I maintained when writing on this subject at an earlier date, they could have used their case as an example of how to handle instances such as these in the public sector.This would have meant they were being transparent about their own situation vis-à-vis clerical errors in government accounting systems, and could have helped others finding themselves in the same or similar positions, to do the right thing.At any rate, this is now water under the bridge, in some respects, as the matter has been laid to rest and the two are at least paying back the Government monies.But the OPM needs to be slightly more open and accountable on matters such as these, instead of being arrogant and self-serving.The fact that they made reference to the fact that the original report in The Namibian was “obviously based on inside information gained unprofessionally” seems to me to be acting totally contrary to their stated intentions to protect whistleblowers! Information about untoward or allegedly corrupt activities will in most cases come from ‘inside information’ and the whole point of zero tolerance towards corruption is getting people to zone in on irregularities.These might be simple ‘administrative errors’ as the OPM maintained was the case, but hopefully they will also ensure in the future that fewer such errors take place, and so minimise wasting of Government funds.So any attempt to ‘witch-hunt’ sources on the part of the OPM, will only have the effect of creating further setbacks in the path of the effective fight against corruption.We do need to encourage an open society, because this will make the anti-corruption campaign far more effective than anything else.If there are less secrets and taboos, and information is freely made available rather than being hidden and inaccessible, then this is a large part of the battle won.To give credit where it is due, neither of the ACC officials in question tried to duck and dive, or avoid reporters when confronted on the double payments.They were at least accessible, which is more than can be said about the OPM for example, none of whose officials were available at the time for comment, and which took over a month to respond to a news report many people had already probably forgotten about.Immediacy is also very important, and so is responsiveness, if the OPM feels that the media have an important role to play in the battle against corruption.Like other cases too, there are lessons to be learned from every situation.It is preferable that people know things rather than being kept in the dark, and most issues, when given public airing, are far easier to deal with.Finally I would argue that The Namibian was quite within its rights to inform the public about this incident and to request some kind of explanation from the powers-that-be.And if they’d both spotted the errors immediately, as both they and the OPM claim was the case, then there seemed to be no reason why they couldn’t have repaid everything in one fell swoop.BUT perhaps the OPM shouldn’t have bothered at all with their ‘explanation’ which, apart from being sadly belated, saw nothing wrong with the whole saga and even accused the media of ‘a clear attempt to question the integrity’ of the ACC chiefs and imply they had acted ‘in a manner prejudicial to their status’.At the time of our report, both officials confirmed the double payments and that they were paying these back to Government in instalments.In my view the use of the monies by both officials, who claimed to have known immediately that erroneous double payments had been made, is what is questionable.Being the people they are and with the positions they hold, they should, even at the time they were taking up their posts in the ACC, been mindful of the repercussions of the error, and made sure that they paid it back immediately, and not settle for a payback period of two years! This may be excusable to people who don’t know better, but in their cases, I feel that the matter does reflect negatively on their integrity.And as I maintained when writing on this subject at an earlier date, they could have used their case as an example of how to handle instances such as these in the public sector.This would have meant they were being transparent about their own situation vis-à-vis clerical errors in government accounting systems, and could have helped others finding themselves in the same or similar positions, to do the right thing.At any rate, this is now water under the bridge, in some respects, as the matter has been laid to rest and the two are at least paying back the Government monies.But the OPM needs to be slightly more open and accountable on matters such as these, instead of being arrogant and self-serving.The fact that they made reference to the fact that the original report in The Namibian was “obviously based on inside information gained unprofessionally” seems to me to be acting totally contrary to their stated intentions to protect whistleblowers! Information about untoward or allegedly corrupt activities will in most cases come from ‘inside information’ and the whole point of zero tolerance towards corruption is getting people to zone in on irregularities.These might be simple ‘administrative errors’ as the OPM maintained was the case, but hopefully they will also ensure in the future that fewer such errors take place, and so minimise wasting of Government funds.So any attempt to ‘witch-hunt’ sources on the part of the OPM, will only have the effect of creating further setbacks in the path of the effective fight against corruption.We do need to encourage an open society, because this will make the anti-corruption campaign far more effective than anything else.If there are less secrets and taboos, and information is freely made available rather than being hidden and inaccessible, then this is a large part of the battle won.To give credit where it is due, neither of the ACC officials in question tried to duck and dive, or avoid reporters when confronted on the double payments.They were at least accessible, which is more than can be said about the OPM for example, none of whose officials were available at the time for comment, and which took over a month to respond to a news report many people had already probably forgotten about.Immediacy is also very important, and so is responsiveness, if the OPM feels that the media have an important role to play in the battle against corrupt
ion.Like other cases too, there are lessons to be learned from every situation.It is preferable that people know things rather than being kept in the dark, and most issues, when given public airing, are far easier to deal with.Finally I would argue that The Namibian was quite within its rights to inform the public about this incident and to request some kind of explanation from the powers-that-be.