An initiative of the National Academy of Public Administration, and the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs and the Bobst Center for Peace and Justice, Princeton University Oral History Program Series: Civil Service Interview no.: L10 Interviewee: Molosiwa Selepeng Interviewer: Daniel Scher Date of Interview: 14 July 2009 Location: Gaborone Botswana Innovations for Successful Societies, Bobst Center for Peace and Justice Princeton University, 83 Prospect Avenue, Princeton, New Jersey, 08544, USA www.princeton.edu/successfulsocieties SCHER: My name is Daniel Scher and I'm the Associate Director of the Innovations for Successful Societies project and I'm here in Gabarone with High Commissioner Mr. Molosiwa Selepeng. Sir, thank you very much for taking time out of your vacation. SELEPENG: Just to correct, just M. L out. There is no L. as you can see. It used to be. SCHER: Okay, you've taken the "L" out. I see. Well, thank you very much sir for meeting with us today. Obviously you have a wide background in the public service and I wonder if before we start our interview you could just tell us a little bit about your personal career background and the various positions that you held. SELEPENG: Well I finished the university in 1971, then I joined the public service. Since then I started in the local administration or district administration, same thing, just for a short while for four months. Then I joined the Office of the President in October 1971. Now it was present at the time including what today is called foreign office. During my time it was one and the same thing, they were the same office. Within two years, 1973 I was posted abroad (to London, Brussels and London again). Then I came back after some years, that is, to be precise (in January) 1980 I came back home. Then I became (Senior Private) Secretary to the first President of the Republic of Botswana the late Sir Seretse Khama and then thereafter his successor Sir Quett Ketumile Joni Masire. Then I was promoted to a senior post of Permanent Secretary for Political Affairs (in 1990), in the Office of the President which I did for nine years until I became Secretary to the Cabinet and Head of the Public Service. SCHER: So what year was it that you became head of the public service? SELEPENG: This was from 1999 (to 2003). SCHER: I'd like to focus if we might on that specific period when you were head of the public service and you'd come in in '99 when I understand there are a number of reform processes underway and the public sector is facing a number of challenges. And I wonder if you could remember back to those early days when you were appointed in 1999. What did you perceive to be the major issues or challenges facing the civil service and what were your priorities as you came into this job? SELEPENG: The major challenge in the public service was the reforms or service delivery. But the reforms in the sense of not doing business in the usual way as we had done in the past, thirty-odd some years but to deliver service to the people and for the country as a whole in the most efficient fashion. That is to say using as few resources as possible but achieving the highest quality of service delivery with as few people as possible and as little (financial resources as possible). SCHER: Okay. SELEPENG: And in as short a time (as possible). SCHER: Can I ask, how were these issues put on the agenda because as you say the civil service has been doing things in one way for thirty years and now all of a sudden there is a drive to do something different. Where was the push coming from? SELEPENG: It was really, it was an international movement for productivity. The productivity movement was catching fire around the world and we had joined the stream. Countries like New Zealand and Singapore in particular were the frontrunners. Yes, the United States as well had the productivity center, they still have it. So we linked up with all three anyway to gain the experiences, or rather to get that expertise of performance management from those three countries. Not only bringing in consultants here which we did but also sending out public officers to the institutions of productivity in those three countries and in some cases government departments to observe, to have meetings, consultations with countries, public services of New Zealand, public services of Singapore in addition to the center, the institutions on productivity. In the case of the United States it was just sending people for training there on performance management but we also brought some consultants from that institute (the Atlanta-based Performance Centre). So since then we have been doing our own training with our own people who are learning at the same time. You see, this was the challenge, learning at the same time but also serving as consultants or as instructors, but of course mixing them with the experienced ones from those three countries. SCHER: I see. So how did this productivity drive take shape in Botswana? I mean what were the specific programs aside from training and aside from sending people overseas? I understand that Botswana National Productivity Center was established. SELEPENG: Yes, (the Botswana National Productivity centre consultants were engaged to help cascade productivity in the Public Service). SCHER: Was that something you were involved with in any way? SELEPENG: No, no. By the time I assumed this responsibility it was already there, it was operational. SCHER: Just in terms of looking abroad to models, you mentioned Singapore and New Zealand and the US-. SELEPENG: (Singapore, New Zealand), Australia and the United States. SCHER: Was that just because they were as you say the frontrunners or did you think there were particular things that they were doing that could be applied in Botswana? SELEPENG: Well, in the case of New Zealand, Singapore, these are comparatively small countries like ourselves. They're bigger than our country but comparatively on the world stage they are considered small countries and their level of development, relative also. It's not very far. If I focus just on the public service. It is not very far from ours. Mind you what is also common is that these public services, New Zealand, Australia and Singapore are modeled on the British like ours. So that's what we had in common apart from the language itself, the official language itself. So our interaction with these countries, at the level of the Commonwealth in particular, the interaction of our leaders, political leaders. This we discovered, you know there was something, apart from that they had so much in common, then we discovered that there is a lot of good will to impart to us from those countries, that which as we say we are aspiring to, and will change. And they were doing things. So the conversations were at different levels. At the technical level and the political level. Here was something to be gained by going into such interactions, into such training. But then of course in the process we also got to know about the Performance Center in the United States which we also used. As I said it was an international productivity movement. So people were interconnected with each other knowing what was going on at this or the other place. SCHER: Now, as the head of the civil service, you've got big ideas about what you would like to see. You are liaising with people in New Zealand, Singapore, the US. Now how do you go about trying to convince other people that reform is necessary and try to build a coalition for these reforms? SELEPENG: Well that was an easy one to do, an easier task to do because ours is a small public service and communication from top to bottom, is not only from top to bottom, also from bottom up. We are a very transparent society, small society, transparent. So communication is a two-way street. So we held workshops and talked about this new thing called productivity, performance management which enhances productivity. Everybody was keen to engage, to improve, you know, efficiency. So it didn't take much convincing, it was just accepted by everybody, at all levels, even the (rank and file) of the public service. Then I remember, just as an anecdote, a chauffer was having an argument with somebody, some senior fellow. He was driving in the car. He said, you know, this person, my supervisor says I should do this that way. But I don't think that is a good performance management. [laughing]. Yes, I don't think that is conducive to performance management. I think the most-it was that, you see, they were driving somewhere and the supervisor was late and he was asking him to drive beyond the speed limit. Then the driver said, "Look, if I drive above the limit, I am going to be arrested by the police. Therefore that kind of thing is not conducive to performance management." He was right. I'm just showing you, that's aligned to how well received it was at all levels. SCHER: This strikes me as a little bit unusual in many ways because productivity obviously requires people to work harder and to adopt new strategies and new ways of doing things. So can you account for this enthusiasm? It is not always received with such enthusiasm, movements towards productivity. SELEPENG: One thing (when) people in Botswana hear about something new and exciting, they would like to try it. If it is described as being conducive to better performance, that it is to say, if it is sold, if it is marketed as something that would improve one's ability to perform or their style of life, whatever the case may be. In other words if it sounds positive, they'll go for it. SCHER: Excellent. Can we talk a little bit more specifically about the performance management system? I have a couple of fairly specific questions. First, were there attempts to join pay changes with performance or to link performance to pay increases? SELEPENG: No, we didn't link it to pay. We realized that it would come in stages. To link it to pay would be one of the last things. First we had to cascade it, to create an understanding of what it is. Everybody was keen for that. It is only much later as we were moving that there were ideas of linking pay. Of course the problem with that is what kind of performance should be linked to pay and which post. Everybody would say: Yes why not mine? You see, you run into such problems. Because then you have to give points, allocate points to say: Well we've performed better than "A" in what way? These complications, we began to face those. The process really I must say that we were caught up in the situation to justify why. Sometimes, just a pat on the back to say well done, a handshake, or a certificate of recognition would be enough. So I mean all these things - the most important thing in human nature is recognition. So people really want recognition more than monetary, as you say linking to pay. If you consider pay, money, how much money would you consider to be enough, that's difficult. But recognition of a person is an accomplishment. It is a human need at the highest level, everybody wants to be recognized. For the duration of my stay in the post that's as far as we went, we never linked it to pay, we hadn't raised that when I left in 2003. SCHER: In terms of the actual performance metrics that you were measuring people against and setting goals for I guess individual offices and individual - , can you talk a little bit about that, about how these metrics were arrived at and who was involved in creating them? SELEPENG: Now that was the most interesting and involved process because the objectives were set-you know, having sat down with people at various workshops all over the country at all levels to cascade the principles of PMS (Performance Management System), we then had to systematically install it, that was the next challenge. Install it at different levels of the public levels, depending on the functions attached to each post or to a scale. So with the supervisor and the employee they got to sit down together to map out the objectives and as you say the measurements as well, the metrics, how you measure. So the objectives were set, of course, at a different time of realization [end of file one.) SCHER: This is part two of the interview. SELEPENG: So it was simple, because everybody was keen, that's where I started to engage. So the objectives were mapped out and then the measurements, how do you measure? Then we've seen what timeframe the objectives were to be achieved. All these things were worked out. The supervisor and the supervisee, you know it was, the most important thing is that it created openness, transparency because I said the system, the previous system, there was no way to assess people at the end of the year. Twelve months is just too long. So it looked a bit-it was not as objective as otherwise intended. But the pyramid really brought this thing out, openness. SCHER: Just for my own understanding, so this is happening in all ministries? SELEPENG: Yes. SCHER: And at all levels? SELEPENG: Yes. This is why in the case of reform of public service it took so much time, because we had the option to run fast, you know, to move fast, just by restricting to the higher levels of the public service, but we decided no, at all levels. Even at the lowest level we will do it. SCHER: Why did you make that decision? Why not just start at the top? SELEPENG: We found it difficult to separate the top civil service from the bottom civil service because they were self-supporting, I mean they're mutually supportive. You could not separate the higher level from the bottom. You have that problem really. SCHER: So that then this is actually a massive program. SELEPENG: Yes. That's what we did. That was our decision and that's how we approached it. SCHER: So across all ministries at all levels, supervisors and supervisees were sitting down with each other and mapping out objectives and - SELEPENG: Workshops, we were having workshops. The only, shall I say, different level of-it's not that level but rather the area physically, it is a district. SCHER: Okay. SELEPENG: I should say we started here in the capital. Now, the Ministry of Local Government then had to deal with the Districts thereafter. That is the only difference, but that otherwise the method was to cascade it to all levels at the same time, so it was a challenge, a big challenge. SCHER: It certainly sounds like it. So then once these metrics, these objectives had been set between the supervisor and the supervisee, who then makes the decisions and gradings on the performance management and how often are they done, because you said twelve months was too long. So how frequently were they happening now? SELEPENG: So the head of the ministry, the Permanent Secretary and then down the line deputy and other supervisors had to take responsibility but the ultimate responsibility was taken by the Permanent Secretary, the head of a ministry. Then we had a special assistant to the Permanent Secretary, just for performance, (called Performance Improvement Coordinator), to deal with the performance management as an expert. These people were trained for that job. They had to assist the Permanent Secretary in dealing with the intricacies of cascading it. Then the objectives as I said, yes, we didn't wait for twelve months. Some objectives could mature within three months, others six months, twelve months, two years, three years, as the case may be. You had to plan for all that. So the time you set on an objective, you decided how long, but that in between periodically the performance or progress would be reviewed and the problems, if any, identified and then resolved . But the most important thing was the ultimate achievement of the objective concerned. SCHER: I see. SELEPENG: So there were reviews. Some three monthly, six monthly, yearly. But others could be done weekly as the case may be depending on the-need. SCHER: So this leaves a lot of flexibility-. SELEPENG: Flexibility, yes, yes. That's right. SCHER: A lot of authority in the hands of individual supervisors. SELEPENG: But supervisor, and supervisee have to agree on (performance plans and assessment). SCHER: So when a specific objective has been met or identified and supervisor is working with the supervisee to ensure it gets done, and as you say at various stages they would be checking in to see that this would happen. SELEPENG: That's right. SCHER: And presumably writing reports and that sort of thing. SELEPENG: Yes. SCHER: So would the supervisee get a chance to see the-? SELEPENG: Precisely, that was the purpose. As I said, it promoted transparency. The supervisee-it was so transparent, he couldn't say that it was an unfair assessment of the performance. You couldn't say that because it was done with you. SCHER: What if there was a disagreement, was there any appeals process? SELEPENG: Yes, because everyone has one immediate supervisor. I've said that the Permanent Secretary had the ultimate responsibility, so he was the highest supervisor. So if there was disagreement, yet it could be taken up. SCHER: Just routine, go up and up. SELEPENG: Yes, up the ladder (to the highest authority in the Public Service). SCHER: I see. Something that we have seen in other settings is that people are initially enthusiastic about performance management and these sorts of reviews but after a while people sometimes become less enthusiastic because having to sit down with the supervisor and work these things out takes time away from your own job and your own responsibilities. So was that something you encountered and were there any measures you-? SELEPENG: No. In our case enthusiasm was never quenched. SCHER: Really? SELEPENG: No. Because, maybe because we didn't just rely on the same expertise around the world. I said there was Singapore, New Zealand, Australia, the United States, to draw from and we realized that the-the names change from time to time. For example today we talk about the balanced scorecard. But the perspective is the same, to improve performance. So we would, in the process of these reforms, from time to time introduce a new concept, which would render something new, always throwing in something new every now and then periodically. The objective was not to sustain the interest but rather we were responding to the movement, as I said the productivity movement around the world. When we hear of something new or better, we go for it. Call in experts, to govern the instructors how to do it better than the system we already know. That's how we-even today, that is what is still going on. SCHER: I understand today there are still some concerns that maybe people are suffering from reform fatigue. SELEPENG: Yes. SCHER: Have you heard this? SELEPENG: Yes, yes. SCHER: What are your thoughts on that? As you say, you're constantly seeing new things and you want to try to implement them, but at the same time it makes people constantly have to learn to do new things. SELEPENG: My own view is look, I don't want to be unkind to performance management system consultants around the world because it's a business. It's a business. In their analysis, really, to improve performance there are generic ways which are applied. Principles - generic principles. But very minor differences, very minor, minute differences. One consultant would put the emphasis here; the other consultant there. Now, in my opinion, I would not encourage that we change every time you know-that is we going with the fashion, becoming fashionable, introducing new things, the twists and turns here and there but without changing the substance, perspective as I said. I would go for a system that improves performance and then concentrate on that and be steady, go steady on that. That is, without bringing in new things every time when they are mentioned; I wouldn't do that. I would just concentrate on performance improvement, efficiency, to build up efficiency. And as you said, to avoid the fatigue. The fatigue, you know, come in if people may say have acquired proficiency in a system. Next time you come around and say, oh, forget about that, we are bringing in something new. They say what? We already mastered this one, now why. This will come in. But if you concentrate on a system and are satisfied that it improves your performance, it improves the efficiency, then you move on. Then you are sure, as we said, bring in the measurements and you can as openly as possible, transparency, be transparent. Everybody buying into it, operating it, the supervisors and supervisees, that formula will be okay. SCHER: So were there any particular challenges in introducing these schemes. I mean, as you said, if you're changing things a lot some people-. SELEPENG: Begin to question why this one, why that one, what was wrong with the previous one, what is to be gained. In the process really they get to see there's not much difference between the systems. Now as I said I don't want to be unkind to consultants because that is their business. Everyone would say oh, I have this one and yes, he's marketing it to make money. SCHER: You mentioned the balanced scorecard. Is that one you could talk a little bit more about because that is something I've come across but haven't been able to find out too much about, how balanced scorecard was meant to work here in Botswana. SELEPENG: Yes, it was introduced of course after my time. SCHER: Okay. SELEPENG: But they taught us. I mean I went to workshops and as I said I don't see any difference between other forms of performance management system around that. There's no difference, in my opinion. There's no difference, it's just difference of names because they all seek to improve performance. As I said, that is what is generic, to improve performance and to involve supervisor and supervisee in the process of measuring the performance openly, transparently. These are new things. As I said performance was measured in the olden days but it used to take twelve months and there was no transparency, basically those are the only differences. SCHER: Okay, I see. So what you're really saying is that there is a bottom line of core principles and that's what you needed to focus on. SELEPENG: Yes. SCHER: Okay, but in terms of other obstacles, I can't imagine that everything was smooth sailing. There must have been challenges and difficulties that arose when you're trying to cascade down all this information. SELEPENG: Yes, yes, that is true. The difficulties that arose were the differences of work. You know, the work performance itself. Some functions were concrete. People relate to them very well, I am producing bricks or I am servicing vehicles, so many vehicles per day, or I am producing so many bricks per day. Okay, schoolteachers could say, well I'm educating so many kids, at the end of the year they pass these grades, etcetera, etcetera. That's concrete. But other functions, as you say there are challenges, functions were abstract. For example, foreign affairs functions, political functions. They deal with issues which are abstract. So the question is, how do you measure that you've done well. It's a challenge. How do you measure that? You have relations with another country, then yes, there is mutual good will. How do you measure that good will, that's abstract. Then you maybe, a head of state visits your country. Then at the end of the visit do you think it was a successful visit, how do you measure it, because there are always different reasons for this visit. A head of state visit is normally good will, nothing else, but there may be a technical visit of officials, or of ministers who come. Let's say ministers of culture or minister of mining, come in to benchmark on how you in your own country run the mining portfolio of a country and industry. You say, or the agriculture industry. Yes. Well in that case you can say okay, we have showed them, told them how we do it, that sort of thing. But I'm just giving you a wide spectrum of functions that as a result it becomes very difficult in the abstract to measure progress that you're making. And benchmarking on other people's experiences. I remember, my Permanent Secretary asking me how the foreign affairs of the host country measure their own performance. Then they gave me this example, "if a visitor comes to our country from outside and he is happy, we would say we performed well, but to what extent? That is the question, that question still remains, to what extent. Because diplomacy, it is a very difficult thing. Is the visitor smiling or expressing words of thanks for diplomatic reasons or is it genuine. It is difficult to say. But I suppose the borderline was also to tell ,without ways, whether that the visitor is happy. So really that was one of the challenges you see, to measure issues, to measure functions that are abstract, very difficult and to put in the metrics, how do you measure that, how to do it, how to measure the performance. SCHER: So do you mind me asking-? SELEPENG: No, ask me any questions. SCHER: What metrics you did then come up with because this is a very difficult one as you say because if somebody's performance evaluation is based on a diplomat smiling, I mean it is very difficult. SELEPENG: I should go further and say some of the outcomes are not immediate. We realized, in years. Because what you are gaining at that moment of the visit is the good will. Now good will engenders other positive things, not in the short-term but in the long-term. So it is not fair therefore to measure the outcomes then and there if you have achieved the intended objective. It is just the beginning. You know, it is an investment. What you are measuring really, it should be the investment in good will which then really then opens the possibilities for other things in the medium, long-term. It is your people-it is for you therefore to exploit those that good will which you have generated. SCHER: But again, coming-. SELEPENG: So it is important that for the supervisor to realize that, the outcomes are not immediate. Now you're asking me how we measured it. SCHER: Yes. SELEPENG: We measured the goodwill which is immediate. The goodwill, the immediate, that I can measure then and there. So yes, the visitor was happy. We have signed an agreement of cooperation for example. It is just an agreement of cooperation, we could do that. In technical, scientific, cultural, whatever, economic. It is just an agreement, okay? Now having signed that, now that agreement, as you can hear, on economics, scientific, technical agreement, cultural, is not for the Minister of Foreign Affairs to execute. It is for other departments to execute, to exploit that agreement. What you have done at that moment is just the good will, facilitation of things to come. SCHER: Right. SELEPENG: So you have to sell it to your own people to explore that good will that you have, that has just been gained. SCHER: So that becomes sort of the metric that you would measure the performance of the foreign affairs department by, sort of-I guess I'm still battling to understand how, even as yourself as the high commissioner how somebody would judge your performance as high commissioner in terms of the amount of good will that you are sort of engendering. It is quite a difficult thing to measure. SELEPENG: Yes. It is easier if we go-if we take the example of a newly established diplomatic relations with a country. Then you are credited ambassador, high commissioner, for the first time. It is easy to see progress that you make. Like in my case, Australia and New Zealand. I can enumerate that. I can show you, by way of example. Because in a long-standing relationship it is difficult, the structures are already there. Maybe you have even reached the state of saturation in expecting the goodwill. Let's say, for example, with an old country of long-standing relations like the UK (United Kingdom), the United States for example okay? They've been our friends for as long as we have been independent. But if you go to a new country and open a high commission there, open an embassy there, it is a terra incognita I would say, it is a vision that - which you cultivate initially. So the moment you come they receive you of course. You can tell the way you are received the good will, the body language of the host country towards you. Everybody wants to help you, whatever your whole internal objectives are, as the envoy. Then you start. You have to, of course, work very quickly to see what is possible, to study the policies of that particular country, its resources, the policies, I mean, how they want to engage with the rest of the world. To be specific that is what would be relevant to an envoy, to see what this host country wants to achieve and what they want to work out in their own country or countries like your own. For example, do they want to sell commodities? Do they want to invest? If so, in what areas. You have to do that very quickly and then position your country such that you know these things can materialize in the quickest way. So that's what I did. I got to Australia. I knew the country even before I left, political, economic, I studied that before I left. So when I got there I did determine how I could position Botswana to advantage point in order to benefit from the policies, their economic standing, their political standing of Australia for example. Soon I realized that its attributes, it is a developed country, very large, well resourced. The similarities for example, there are some parts of Australia like Western Australia which is dry like Botswana but they are very good in agriculture. Why? Because of the expertise they have. There are dry land farming techniques. So I determined that look, Botswana can benefit if we can benchmark all the techniques, these dry land techniques. So then I would approach the Australians to work with Botswana so that we also can produce on the dry land conditions on the dry climate conditions rather. So then we have a project in agriculture. Now, of course, they don't necessarily want to invest in agriculture overseas. No, no country wants to do that unless there is an advantage to themselves. But certain things which are - have no borders, which if promoted all over the world the whole world would benefit like prevention of diseases, crop diseases. If you would take care of your crops and you forget about your neighbor's ability to control crop diseases you are going to suffer one day. So you want to help your neighbor, to gain the capacity in the crop disease prevention, that sort of thing, because some of them don't just travel physically, they travel through the air, you never know. Export, input, you never know. Or people you know, they chose. No seriously it is very strict on these things. They do their best but you can't be 100%. Then we have international regime like WTO (World Trade Organization), we are all negotiating that. Each country wants to have an advantage of sorts. Australia is not an exception. In agriculture we find ourselves on the same side vis-ˆ-vis the United States and the EU (European Union) for example. That the EU and the United States - the United States provide agricultural subsidies and EU impose tariffs in agriculture. Now Australia and New Zealand are very effective in agriculture and produce, very efficiently. Their farmers don't need any subsidization. So if (Australia and New Zealand) were free to sell to Europe and the United States, they would excel there. So, we the developing countries, most of our products really are primary products. That is agriculture. So we have that in common (with Australia and New Zealand). But the difference in the context of the WTO process is that technologically we are not empowered. So we seek the assistance of Australia and New Zealand to empower our negotiators to engage. So they would be agreeable to instruct us, to assist us, to give us the capacity so that we can train in international trade negotiations for example. They would be amenable to that because it helps them in turn if we were able to negotiate. It would help Australia, it would help New Zealand vis-ˆ-vis the EU and the United States. This is just an example I'm giving you, a second example. SCHER: I see, I see. SELEPENG: So programs like that you (would start as part of bilateral cooperation)n. SCHER: Okay, and then-. SELEPENG: Then you measure progress- SCHER: Then you measure progress. I see, thank you. That's a good example, a way of thinking about these things. So I mean we've already spoken quite a lot about this performance management system. Were there any other particular reforms that you were focused on during your tenure there or was PMS the big one? SELEPENG: PMS was the biggest, performance was the biggest in terms of public service reforms. Of course everything really, how you do things, how you deliver the service, can be described as part and parcel of PMS, performance management. SCHER: One question I had was, I mean you mentioned you were doing workshops and specific training for different levels of the public service in actually implementing the reforms. I was wondering if you can talk about the training high-level officials got versus the mid-level officials versus low-level. Did it vary? You mentioned you were sending some people overseas. SELEPENG: Yes, the difference was in the intensity. SCHER: Could you talk a little bit about that? SELEPENG: Okay. At the lower ranks of course you have to install concepts like ownership of property, public service, public property rather. Let's say a driver. Now his vehicle, you don't say it belongs to government - you take good care of it. Who is government? It is an institution. You are part of that institution. Why? Because you pay tax. If you don't take care of this vehicle it breaks down. What does the institution of government do? It will raise taxes, the level of taxes. That means you are going to be paying more tax. So that we can repair the vehicle you have been careless of. Now that's basic. That's basic. You take care of this vehicle, make sure at all times it is well serviced, all that okay? Now he understands that. Then that is - there is no wastage, that is what you are eliminating, you eliminate the waste in terms of material, whether it is oil, etcetera, etc. You eliminate time wastage. Again, because if you don't perform your functions within what is reasonable, humanly possible, to do it quickly, it is a waste. Again, it is inefficiency. So those are the concepts we instill at that level but as you go up the public service, of course it is about the attitude towards people, you should know the people, the public are the boss and you are the servant. Indeed it is called the public service of public servants, you have to understand that. So in other words be courteous to the public, serve them efficiently, that is as quickly as you can. No waiting, no excuse, that sort of thing. No excuse. Response time. If an incident is reported that needs attention, response time must be quick, things like that. But as you go up the pyramid it is not so much the techniques, but planning, planning and implementing. That of course needs more high level of understanding, high level of training. So it gets more sophisticated as you go up. This will depend on the basic education of people, their training, the professions that they have gone through, etcetera, etcetera. Those are the differences. But generically you are focusing on efficiency at all levels, that is what was common. SCHER: One question-. SELEPENG: That is efficiency and effectiveness I should say. Effectiveness because you want the outcomes to have an impact. So not only efficiency, effectiveness, impact. Those three. What outcomes you expect. What, to what effect are you doing that. SCHER: So really I mean a lot of this is, it is much a mental-. SELEPENG: Common sense. SCHER: Well common sense, yes, but also-I mean you're trying to-. SELEPENG: You're wanting to change the mindset, you are changing the mindset. This is what we are doing. This is what we are doing at all levels, changing the mindset of people. When I said not doing business as usual. Changing the mindset. But to be effective, efficient and to produce impact. SCHER: One specific question I had is, I mean Botswana has consistently been rated very high on the Transparency International Corruption Perception Index. They got the best rating in Africa and has maintained this over a number of years with particularly low levels of corruption. In many other countries the civil service is beset with a plague of corruption. I was wondering whether you instituted any programs or had any input into basically ensuring that the Botswanan civil service maintains this very high standard of professionalism when it comes to this particular issue of petty corruption? SELEPENG: Yes, well, there are two things perhaps. One is the national character, or the cultural ethic. Culturally there is no corruption. That is culturally speaking, no. No, because, everybody fifty years ago and more was more inclined to give than to receive. You were very much aware of how much you had yourself, possessions and how much your next neighbor didn't. In that case you felt that you had to give to those who had less. To help those who were less resourced than yourself. That was the cultural ethic keeping others for nothing in return, okay, for nothing. There was no market. The market, as you understand it in economics. People just shared things in common. A hundred years ago perhaps as you see, they just shared things. They produced - they could come together as labor to work on a function whether it is agriculture, to plant, they would all come together, or to build a school, a community school. For example, there is a college near Palapye. Do you have an idea where Palapye is? SCHER: A rough idea, yes. SELEPENG: From here it is about 272-it is exactly 272 km from Gaborone. Then when you are there, there is a college (to the East), called Moeng College. It was built by people donating cows to build it, for the community. This was in 1948. Okay? So that children can go to acquire senior secondary school education. It is still there today. That was the attitude. When you say to them, look, as a community, we are in need of this or that, shall we contribute? Of course. It is those who have the means who are going to contribute, the poor provide their labor, as they did. That was the community spirit we had. Now, at independence this spirit was still there. We call it self-reliance, self-reliance, where you would do things for community benefit without expecting pay in return. Now once you have that kind of attitude, where does corruption come in? There's no place, because there is nothing to be exchanged. That is what obtained then. There was no market, market exchange, that's what I was talking about. But the only form of exchange that we had, if you take the case of farmers, (was the exchange of bulls. One farmer could exchange Sussex bulls for Semental bulls, to prevent inbreeding of his cattle). I go to my neighbor or somebody else who had a different breed. I say, let's exchange. That is not the only kind of exchange you think of. So I give you one bull, Sussex, you give me one bull, henceforth. I give you two, you give me two. Where is the room for corruption? None. Now that was the kind of life we led in the early days. Because, again, we did not have population pressure, the means of distribution were open as I said, just like that. That person is poor, that one is richer. As I said there was universal community spirit of helping each other. That is, I'm explaining the cultural background (we had in the villages). SCHER: I understand. SELEPENG: When I talk about national character and cultural ethic, that's where they came from then (compare and contrast with the situation) as you have it today. Our open society is too influenced by television culture an infusion of foreigners coming in here. Somebody comes, in a restaurant for instance, he orders a meal and at the end, gives the waitress some money. I can tell you our people used to wonder, what is it for? Why is he giving me this? Actually they used to refuse. Then these foreigners would insist, please, please. Because they come from societies like the United States where a tip is institutionalized. So through the interaction, mixing with such people, then we got to know of the thing that's called "a tip". But relatively I said, we are still a country that is very good, with low levels of corruption. We still uphold accountability. We have it as our national ethic that you must account for what you have been entrusted. If you have been entrusted with a resource to utilize you must at the end of the day account to some authority that yes, I've used these public resources to this effect and here are the outcomes. If there is a change or there is any remaining resources you have to declare them. That is we have always understood. Second, the resources, in terms of the absorptive capacity, that is, if you are give resources to say these resources should enable you to achieve the accomplishment of this objective, in other words you have to use say so much money in order to promote such-and-such a project. Okay? If you succeed you say, yes, I've used so much, project achieved. Or, I've run short of resources, this is how far I went in terms of deploying resources. So accountability has always been high. Now, at the beginning, as I said, it was influenced by the culture and heritage, the culture and ethics of the people that look, I am not entitled to use that which is not mine. If I am mandated by some authority or by some institution to utilize resources, I must account. Then, as I said, use it efficiently as well, use it effectively, not waste, because it is part of the accounting. Use all those things openly, transparently. So these ethics have always been in our society from the beginning. SCHER: Excellent. We focused a lot on your time as head of the civil service, but I was wondering if we could move back a little bit and talk about your experience as private secretary to both President Khama and President Masire. One thing that Botswana has really been blessed with is very good leadership, very good Presidents right from independence. I was wondering if in your position as private secretary, particularly around the transition from President Khama to President Masire, you saw some of the legacies that President Khama instilled being carried through into a new presidency and whether there were any particular things that stand out as being helpful for Botswana to maintain this very high, very good level of leadership when countries in the region and around Botswana were descending into violence and bloodshed. SELEPENG: Yes. At independence our society, small as it is, we started everything from scratch, that's a point. If you remember, 1966 is our year of independence. It was a year of drought, dusty. So no minerals at the time, they were discovered later. So people wondered if former President Seretse Khama - some people thought, you know, we were foolish to ask for independence. Either foolish or na•ve because really, whatever for. Why couldn't we just stay as a British protectorate administered by the British and resourced by them? What do you hope to gain from independence when we had nothing in terms of economic resources? That was uppermost in people's mind. But fortunately we discovered diamonds. We installed programs, particularly education. I can tell you that for six years up to 1972, 1966 to 1972, our budget was just three million, three million, and it was subsidized by the British, 50%. It was only in '72 that we achieved (budgetary balance.) SCHER: Three million pula? SELEPENG: At the time it was rand. SCHER: Three million rand? SELEPENG: Yes, at the time we were using the rand, the South African rand. So three million rand. We didn't have, you know today you can-when did you first come to Botswana? SCHER: Sunday night. SELEPENG: First time? SCHER: Yes first time, but I'm from Durban. SELEPENG: Yes, okay good, then you should know. We didn't have this time of roses you see over the country, they were not there. The schools you see they were not there, hospitals, they were not there, there was nothing, absolutely. So the challenge of the new government - President Khama Seretse and Masire was his deputy at the time, Vice President. They installed development programs. We started what you call the National Development Plan. We used a five-yearly plan in order to set the government objectives for a period of five years to achieve them across sectors. This is the strategy we adopted. Then the next was, having set objectives for development, we had to mobilize resources. How do you budget? How do you find? How do you pay for those resources? Okay, countries around the world were very friendly to us. So they provided, of course not enough, but they did provide. For example, if I take the Norwegians, Norway, Sweden, they sort of specialized in helping poor countries. They said there are poor countries, we are going to help. Norway was in the medical for example, Sweden rural. Now that involves roads, infrastructure, they did all that. But others also came in, the Germans, the British, the Americans, the Canadians, they all came in in their own way. So it was a question of how to help, because the development plan you could consider them as a basket, you just put things, your objectives in a basket. Then you take this basket around to these benefactors, to these potential donors to say look, these are the plans I have, this is the five-year plan I have. These are the objectives I want to promote. Which one do you think you can help me and to what extent? They would just say okay, I'll take this one and to this extent. That's how we started. And it worked, it worked. Peaceful as you said, we're a peaceful society. Again it is our own ethic, national ethnic. Peaceful because we have an attitude of mutual good will as a society, as people. Mutual good will and tolerance. That is in our society again. It explains what at the end you could say is democracy, democratic ethos. Where do you get it? We didn't get them from the Westminster model, as most people did. No. We didn't copy. It is ours-inbuilt in our, inbuilt in our own national ethic. But if you have mutual tolerance, mutual good will in a democracy, in other words, freedoms of expression. If you go to a, I don't know if you know that the head of a cultural court, we call them "kgotla". It is funny that the word rhymes, "kgotla" and court. But it is the same thing. Where you debate public issues say for the community. Everybody rich, poor, man, woman, is free, culturally speaking, to express himself or herself and has got a right to be listened to even if you differ, your opinion differs. Then at the end the chief who sits there would summarize the consensus. You see that? SCHER: Yes. SELEPENG: Now that system promotes democracy at its best. So before we knew the British we were already at that. So that explains why Botswana is peaceful. Because we were tolerant, mutually tolerant as a national ethic and we have mutual regard to each other. Freedom of expression is a principle we always upheld. Now, Sir Seretse developed the country with his team in government and the public of Botswana as a whole responded to his guidance. What, he did every policy, new policy would not pass parliament without first going to the public. Even today we still do that. If you have, if any ministry, whether it is Minister of Education, Minerals, or whatever, they want to introduce a new bill, the moment it is tabled in parliament, the minister goes out, around the country, to sell the principles of that bill to be accepted by the people. That's what they do. Advisors. At the village level, from the village level, the district level, people put in their own bids to say look, in our area we want to have a hospital, we want to have a clinic, we want to have a power grid, want to have this or that. Okay? They put these things to a member of Parliament. They put this to their councils. Okay? Then it is for government to determine how. Then taking all these village development plans you could say, they started village development plans. They graduate now to wider area you call it a district or a province in your country, South Africa. We call it District development plan. Then at the high level they become national. The central government will then see how, whether it could be a national, whether they could have a national impact. Let's say a road for example becomes a national project because it goes through several districts or villages as the case may be. A school. Although a smaller school will really be localized, like a primary school, but a secondary school, a university, is national. Because children from different areas are free to apply there. The same thing a hospital. Those projects are national. So then you determine the priorities to see, at all levels of development whether it is education, water, the provision of water, health facilities Those are the priorities when we started. You install them at certain points. If you imagine a grid into your country, divide it into squares in a grid system to see accessibility to the people. How accessible are these facilities to the people. You look at the population distribution and then those facilities. That's how we conceptualized our development priorities. So even after the first President left, the second President, the third President, they follow the same system. Even today, the fourth President is still following on the same development strategies Now these policies of course they may be economic, they may be political. It is the same, the approach is the same. You always have to go out and consult the people. The debate, I mean the kgotla, the village, the gatherings, to debate merits of the proposals of the minister, who is proposing that, either a project or a bill or whatever. In other words, this is what you call democracy at its best. You don't just impose new things, new projects, and new policies. You go out to conduct consultations with the people. I'll give you an example which is interesting. Let me give it quickly not to keep you. SCHER: That's okay. SELEPENG: You take corporal punishment, corporal punishment which we still have in Botswana. That is another one which is cultural. These things are done differently. Judicial administrations around the world are different. So that's why, conceptually, unless people come to see how a particular country, like Botswana administers corporal punishment, they may not appreciate its merits. But from a distance they say ugh, that is not good. So about corporal punishment, it is, what you call it, in our culture here, if you have done something wrong like a naughty boy, of 18 or 16, breaks into your house, that sort of thing, you don't take him to jail, no. He is sent to a cultural court (or kgotla). Then you just take a small stick and administer a whipping on his buttocks. You don't need other things as it is very effective. But in some countries you see that's torture. For example, you call it torture. Because in other countries it is done to the extreme. That's why I said you have to see how it is done to appreciate the merits. So there is a (UN) Convention on Torture. It is in three parts, I know it. But we accept it, except this little detail that we should be allowed in our culture, when a little boy or naughty boys do such things, we should be free just to whip them. You have to come and see it to see that it is not degrading, it is not inhuman, it is not torture, then you'll appreciate it. SCHER: It is a good example of what you're saying about-. SELEPENG: This has to do with the (UN) Convention on Torture, for example. Now you have to see how it is administered. SCHER: What you're saying is you have very strong cultural institutions that are aligned very closely with worldwide democratic practices. SELEPENG: Yes, then I'll take capital punishment, we still administer it. As government you cannot impose on people to say we abolish it, as our friends all over the world. Some countries asked our government over the years to abolish capital punishment. Capital punishment is supported by the people. What is democracy? How can we as the institutional government just by a stroke of the pen say capital punishment is abolished? We have what you call the Law Reform Committee. If a law has got to be reformed, a commission goes out periodically to meet with the people and say-in public places, and say, look, your government has been approached for example, it depends on the presentation, whatever it is, that you know our capital punishment should be abolished. They say it is degrading, it is inhuman, that's how other people look at it and they've abolished it, so they want us to do the same. So people say, you mean we should just-we should allow murderers to have a field day in Botswana? They ask you such questions. You say no. They say we should, you know, if somebody has committed murder and so convicted, just give them a life sentence, you know. Oh, if so, who will be feeding him in jail? It is the public purse of course. Who will be housing him? It is the public purse of course. Who will be looking after his health? The public. So you are suggesting that we, the people should allow murderers to commit murder, then we house them in prisons, feed them, take care of their health. That's not fair. What about the bereaved family? No. The concept people advocate is restitution. Then they say if you drop capital punishment then we'll do it ourselves. If somebody murders my child, if somebody murders my relative or my friend, I'll take revenge myself you don't have to worry. Now you see what this will lead to. So if somebody is reported murdered, killed by some other person then of course in a community people start asking questions. Who could have done it? Who is responsible? Maybe it is so-and-so, maybe it is so-and-so. Then the bereaved family would just take whatever means, they're going to execute their revenge. That is lawlessness okay? So you have to do it methodically within the law, within the process of the judiciary. So if you have to abolish capital punishment, it must be agreed to by the people; that's what democracy is all about. You cannot impose it as a government because friendly governments have asked you to, or the United Nations has asked you to. No. We go to the people. Like in other things, policy, new policies, new projects, we go to the people. So, the same thing. SCHER: That's a very good example of the exchange between government officials and the people and how you have to get the people on board before you can-. SELEPENG: It is very well - as a minister as you go out to address the people, not civil servants, the ministers. They will be accompanied by civil servants yes, as advisors. SCHER: I see. SELEPENG: This has been done from time to time and the abolition of capital punishment in particular has been rejected by the person; that's why it is still there in the statute book. SCHER: This has been a very interesting conversation. I know that you have many other places to be. SELEPENG: As I said, you have come a long way, if you have other questions, let's-. SCHER: Actually I was wondering, I mean we have spoken about-. SELEPENG: We have done the PMS, the public service, we have just got into the issues of governance. SCHER: The more general governance. SELEPENG: Anything else you want to talk about, more specifics, foreign policy, why not, it's up to you. SCHER: I'm very specifically interested in the issue of high-level leadership and I'm interested in your perspective as somebody who worked very closely with both Sir Seretse and then President Masire and whether you saw any particular leadership styles or leadership skills from Sir Seretse being carried over into subsequent presidencies. It's just striking that the leadership that Botswana has always had has been of such a high caliber. Just talking about basically the presidents you have worked with. SELEPENG: If I talk about the presidents as people, as persons, personalities rather. No one person is similar to the other, all people are different. The epochs also are different. Now Sir Seretse Khama was in the first years of independence. That was a different epoch. So the advantage he had was that people were trusting to the leadership because it was the first form of leadership we had at independence. He gained independence - he was the independence President. Okay? So the goodwill was abundant, he couldn't go wrong. Here is a man who had gained us independence. The programs are described as development, he was the first to introduce such programs. Here is the pioneer of development. We were starting everything from scratch as I said. There was no (modicum of development) as we didn't inherit anything from our colonial masters. Kilometers of roads, you know there were less than ten, less than 10 km all over the country. The secondary school built by the British is here in Gaborone. All the other schools around the country we built after independence, including this university you see here. We didn't have such things. Hospitals the same. So Sir Seretse Khama introduced all these things, so how could he go wrong? Here is it. So every word he uttered people accepted, I'm being literal here. But he was a democrat. He was very strong in democratic principles and practices. So this was his advantage, he was also charismatic as a person. A good sense of humor he had, a good communicator. He didn't have to say too much, he didn't have to present long speeches or presentations. He was brief, to the point, but people understood him and accepted. As I said, a pioneer of independence, a pioneer of development. We started everything from scratch, he enjoyed so much good will. That was his epoch as we call it. Very few people were educated in the country. Very few. At that time, when I talk of an epoch it was a time when people were more motivated, including myself, I was in that generation. Of course I was much younger but what I mean is I also was imbued with the same spirit of service, of rendering a service to the public, not to gain anything material for myself. That was cardinal at the time. For example, I wouldn't choose a career because it would pay me better; I chose a career which I thought would benefit the people more. I didn't care how much money I received, mine was to serve. Now that was what was in people's mind at the time Seretse was President. I can just give you an example. A graduate was earning 1920 rand a year, 1920, I tell you, in 1973, which is 160 rand a month. That was myself, I was satisfied. People were more interested, or motivated rather in service delivery, to serve the people than to gain anything for themselves. Now Seretse was fortunate also to have been President at a time when people's attitudes were still that positive. Initially, people were uninfluenced by anything else but to help other people. As I described earlier, I said the cultural ethic of the people of Botswana in earlier times was to help the needy. If you were endowed with more yourself you felt the moral obligation to assist those who were less fortunate than yourself. You were modest. Those were the social attitudes of the time. President Masire time was transitional, that was a (period of a revolution of rising expectations). More and more people had got educated and the external influences were coming in. So the aspirations had grown up to a higher level than during the time of Seretse. Because at the time of Seretse Karma, the aspirations were just to get up from the ground - get up from the ground. As I said we started from scratch. Now at the time of Masire we were already off the ground. Now the aspirations were becoming of no limit because people were now aware, they were becoming aware of what, in the world as a whole, a human being can achieve. Now this is the time now when you're talking of people going to the moon etcetera, television, the influence of television coming in. You know, you see how people live in the United States. Of course in television they always show you Hollywood, it is the best part, they never show you the suffering in poor areas in foreign countries. So people were getting influenced by such things. Then the market forces were coming in, competition was coming in. Then it was becoming difficult, people were becoming more difficult to please and to manage because, as I said they were more aware. The aspirations had grown to a high level. To satisfy them was becoming more and more difficult. So the challenges of development in other words were becoming more and more difficult too. But still it was-I'm only talking in relative terms, they were still manageable. I'm only making the point because you asked me to compare the time of Seretse and the time of Masire. But we rose to the challenge, I must tell you that. We rose to those challenges, we managed. We rose to those challenges and we're still-until this global recession, otherwise I was going to tell you that Botswana has always been going up, up to today, until a year ago, eighteen months ago when global recession came in to interfere with the sale of diamonds. Because it is a question of supply and demand. The demands of people are always there and you have to supply them with the resources. But since, in terms of development programs, our resources are diamonds in particular and are not being sold because the economies of the United States, Japan in particular, those are the two major markets for diamonds. Those are the two countries who have suffered most in terms of the global recession, hence our diamond sales are going down almost proportionately. That has retarded the pace of the development and inflation has gone up. We don't have a closed market because - we interact with the rest of the world, so inflation is also important, particularly with the biggest country - South Africa, it has got an influence on our economy. SCHER: That's very helpful to think of it in terms of epochs and the different-. SELEPENG: Epochs, attitudes. An epoch where you look at the internal dynamics, then the influences from outside, the dynamics, you have to go into that. Then the supply and demand. The demands, the needs of the people and then how you want to satisfy those needs and you depend on resources. How you marshal resources, where do you get the resources. In our case it is the sales of minerals, diamonds. Then the flow of foreign aid. In the early days aid was coming in in floods because there were very few countries,-let me say (in the different ideological camps). You remember at the beginning of our independence, it was an era of east-west rivalry. Then of course we were in the democratic camp you could call it vis-ˆ-vis communist camp. So democratically aligned countries would assist the democratic developing countries as they saw them. But even the communist country like the Soviet Union, the Chinese, wanted to be friends. They were fighting for emerging countries so to speak. So there was a lot of aid coming in from both camps. When the Soviet Union disappeared in '89-'90, the flow of aid stopped because what motivated it earlier - I'm not saying that it was only motivated by the need to have friends, because some countries really were genuine assisting for the sake of assisting, helping you develop. But there was the other factor of gaining friendship, support. It was there. Then of course the third thing - factor, is that the countries which had resources, developed countries, they also had this fatigue, the aid fatigue you call it to use your own idiom of fatigue, aid fatigue when you came in. Everybody has become a democratic country now, all countries, they call themselves democratic today. So the resources all over the world really have reduced because in every country their own needs have increased. Their own problems internally have increased. They have to address. Even the populated area in earlier times, nations were motivated by the need to help others. But that is no longer the case. They say no, why should we go and spend our tax money in foreign countries when we in our own country are in need of this and that. They ask their politicians; they ask their government. So it is not easy these days to dispense foreign aid. You have to appease your own population first. So the amount therefore shrinks that you can dispose, that you can dispense to the rest of the world as aid. In the United Nations, the agencies that were assisting around the world in humanitarian causes, are suffering because the flow of pledges is not as it used to be in the past. There was also the fact of high profiles. You know in humanitarian causes there were higher profile refugees, for example. If you remember South Africans and Rhodesians in particular were regarded as high-profile refugees - around the world, everybody wanted to assist them. Do you remember that? They went to schools. That's why today you go to Zimbabwe you will find so many people with strings of Ph.D.s, South Africa the same thing. Those Ph.D.s, they got at that time because scholarships were abundant to these people. But it is no longer the case today. So there were many factors influencing international relations at the time. Today the situation has changed in international relations. SCHER: That's very interesting. SELEPENG: We now have to fight it out for ourselves. For example in the WTO to which I have already referred. The restructuring of the United Nations is it democratic? We don't think so because (the Bretton Woods) institutions of the UN were established by the victors in 1945. They're not democratic to the rest of the world of nations, they are not. We need to restructure those. But those who have already attained privileges in the process don't want to part with those privileges, for example the veto power. Why should five countries in the whole world out of what, 200 countries, have the right to veto? Those five countries, that's undemocratic. It is the legacy of the Second World War. I'm not belittling that. The problems of the time were a different epoch as I said. SCHER: As you said. SELEPENG: A different epoch. You have to really, in all fairness, adjust things in the context of the time and the mentality of the time. You should not be wise after the event. You're not going to act like an armchair critic here and judge, you know, what happened in 1945. But I can state as a matter of fact that it is no longer applicable. That much I can say. That's why I said we need to restructure the UN. We have to relook at these things, at these structures in international relations. SCHER: Thank you, sir. That was a very good note to end on. I want to thank you for your very thoughtful comments. This will definitely be useful for our research. Innovations for Successful Societies Series: Civil Service Oral History Program Interview number: L10 ______________________________________________________________________ 21 Use of this transcript is governed by ISS Terms of Use, available at www.princeton.edu/successfulsocieties Use of this transcript is governed by ISS Terms of Use, available at www.princeton.edu/successfulsocieties