• Employees question recruitment exercise 

• They also claim Management pays P3.6 million  

The Acting General Manager of Air Botswana (AB), Ms Mphi Tlhomelang, has denied allegations that management has ‘cooked up the airline’s recruitment exercise’. 

This follows the advertisement of managerial positions at the airline. The staff also accuses management of misleading government on some developments at the airline. 

AB’s employees say they have been left wondering who is doing the recruitment since all current managers are acting in their positions. Some employees who spoke to The Gazette on condition of anonymity alleged that they do not trust the recruiting advertisements that have been published recently because it appears they favour most of the current managers. 

“We want a new General Manager who will say who he wants to work with; why are they rushing this exercise?” one employee charged. 

They employees point out that it is not clear who is doing the recruiting; “of late there has been a number of un-procedural recruitments, one leading to the hiring of a 62 year old who is related to one of the managers.” In one of the recent meetings it is understood that some employees asked the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Transport why the recruitment exercise could not wait for the General Manager because he would be the one driving the organisation. 

For her part Tlhomelang said the recruitment has been outsourced and all employees of the airline are free to apply. She explained that government, via a savingram from the Ministry of Works and Transport, had decided to fill the vacancies and had outsourced the process. 

“There is no how we can influence the recruitment because the process has been outsourced to consultants. All applications will be directed to them and they will recommend suitable candidates to the Board, who in turn will conduct the interviews.”

Another controversy at the airline concerns the grounding of a BA 146 aircraft for maintenance. The employees claim that it was grounded because it was “too expensive to maintain”; it was going to cost government around P4.5 million for the repair work to be done. Meanwhile management chartered a 34- year-old Boeing 737 aircraft for close to P1.7 million every ten days. Air Botswana colours have been branded on the charter despite the fact that the lease agreement expires at the end of December.

In addition the employees said Air Botswana pays for the fuel as well as the accommodation of the chartered aircraft staff every Saturday when they spend a night in Gaborone. 

BA146, which is less than 20 years-old, has been grounded for close to a year now. “We do not understand how they convinced government to take their advice. It was going to be cheaper to repair BA 146 rather than charter an old aircraft. All that was needed for the aircraft was a security door, which is required for any aircraft that carries more than 50 passengers, and other minor repairs; this would have cost an estimated P4.5 million,” said one informant.  “We believe some of them have been misleading government,” he charged. 

Responding Tlhomelang explained that the aircraft requires a lot of work done on it to return it to a serviceable condition. She said they were still collecting information on how to make it serviceable. Recently the Air Botswana management announced that a team has been set up, led by one of the captains, to establish what was needed to get BA 146 back on duty. 

“The lease of the Boeing 737 aircraft was done as a stop gap measure while we try to get the BA 146 back on air. The other challenge with the BA 146 aircraft is the availability of spare parts, which also pushes operating costs up. Around the world these types of planes are parked, mainly because of parts constraints,” she said. She however would not reveal how much the airline was paying each month for the Boeing jet.

Meanwhile Air Botswana last year announced the purchase of two ATR 72-500 aircrafts with a seating capacity of 72. However it is understood that the manufacturer has advised noted that the planes should only carry 68 passengers “so as to maximize comfort”. The employees claim that they are unable to take off on full load.

The ATR aircrafts were chosen over jet planes as they are perceived to be more reliable and economic.

The employees say that they want government to intervene, “because our hopes were that things would develop to become better at the airline. This is our pride; government should protect it from practices that could further dent its image.”BY AUBREY LUTE

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