Botswana’s proposed performance contracts demand a period of introspection about whether Government should reward administrative activity or measurable improvements in citizens’ lives.
By Elliot Majova and Douglas Rasbash
Botswana’s proposal to place Permanent Secretaries on performance contracts deserves broad support. Yet before a single contract is signed, Government must answer a far more important question than whether performance should be rewarded. It must first decide what performance actually means.
The debate comes at an important moment in Botswana’s history. After almost six decades of political stability, administrative continuity and diamond-led development, the country is entering a period of introspection. Economic growth has become more difficult to sustain, unemployment remains stubbornly high, public finances are under pressure and citizens increasingly expect more from Government than competent administration. They expect results.
ACCOUNTABILITY QUESTION
At the centre of this discussion sit Permanent Secretaries. Ministers determine political direction, but Permanent Secretaries are the chief executives of Government ministries. They control the machinery that translates policy into action and therefore carry much of the responsibility for whether Government succeeds or fails. Like chief executives in the private sector, they should rightly be held accountable for performance. The challenge is deciding how that performance should be measured.
ACTIVITY OR IMPACT
For decades, Government has measured its performance largely by activity. Ministries report how many classrooms have been built, kilometres of road surfaced, megawatt-hours of electricity generated, million cubic metres of water supplied, internet penetration achieved, cattle numbers recorded, workshops conducted, people trained, the percentage of the National Development Plan implemented and, perhaps most importantly, whether the annual budget has been fully spent. These are useful administrative measures, but they reveal surprisingly little about whether the lives of Batswana have actually improved. Experience suggests they often do not. Expanding infrastructure has not automatically generated faster economic growth. Licensing more vehicles has not increased national productivity. High rates of National Development Plan implementation have not consistently translated into higher incomes or more jobs. Ministries have regularly spent almost all of their allocated budgets without delivering the inclusive growth and broad-based prosperity that citizens expect.
OUTPUTS AND OUTCOMES
This illustrates the fundamental distinction between outputs and outcomes. Outputs measure what Government does; outcomes measure what Government achieves. Every Budget Speech speaks of improving the welfare of Batswana, yet our performance management systems continue to reward activity more than impact. If Botswana is serious about performance contracts for Permanent Secretaries, that must change. The Permanent Secretary responsible for Labour cannot claim success simply because another employment programme or regulation has been introduced. Success is reflected in higher labour force participation, more sustainable jobs and falling unemployment. The Permanent Secretary for Lands and Agriculture should not be judged by the number of ISPAAD fields planted, LIMID grants awarded, livestock vaccinated, boreholes drilled, acres under irrigation, extension visits conducted, tractors subsidised or farmers trained. These are important means, not ends. The true measure of success is higher crop and livestock productivity, a wider diversity of agricultural products, greater value addition, lower food imports, stronger exports, improved nutrition and rising rural incomes.
DEFINING SUCCESS
Every ministry should therefore have one defining national outcome against which its leadership is ultimately judged. Supporting indicators will always be necessary, but a single principal outcome forces every ministry to answer one simple question: what measurable improvement happened because this ministry exists?
Botswana would not be pioneering this approach. Countries such as New Zealand, Singapore and Rwanda increasingly evaluate public sector performance through improvements in productivity, education, health, employment, investment and citizen well-being rather than the volume of Government activity.
The principle is straightforward. Governments do not exist to build classrooms, lay roads or spend budgets. They exist to improve people’s lives. If performance contracts are built around measurable national outcomes rather than administrative outputs, Permanent Secretaries will stop managing activities and start managing results. That simple shift could fundamentally change the culture of Government.
CULTURAL SHIFT
The deeper reform is cultural rather than administrative. For decades, Permanent Secretaries have been viewed primarily as accounting officers responsible for compliance, procedure and financial discipline. Those responsibilities remain indispensable, but Botswana now requires something more. It needs leaders who constantly ask whether policies are producing results, whether programmes deliver value for money, whether ministries are collaborating effectively and whether public expenditure is genuinely improving the lives of citizens. In short, it needs chief executives of national outcomes rather than custodians of administrative processes.
PUBLIC ACCOUNTABILITY
Transparency should become part of that transformation. Imagine Government publishing a real-time online dashboard allowing every citizen to follow progress against each ministry’s agreed outcomes throughout the year. Imagine every Permanent Secretary appearing annually before Parliament not simply to explain how money was spent but to account for whether measurable improvements were achieved and, where they were not, how performance would be improved. Such openness would strengthen both accountability and public confidence.
NATIONAL SCORECARD
It is equally possible to imagine a future State of the Nation Address accompanied by a concise national performance scorecard. Instead of launching programmes of change and cataloguing projects completed, Government could report whether programme objectives had achieved the expected outcomes and whether Botswana had become more prosperous and resilient than the previous year. Those are the questions citizens understand because they reflect everyday experience. Performance contracts therefore represent an important opportunity. But the contract itself is not the reform. The key performance indicator applied is the true reform.
REWARD RESULTS
Reward expenditure and Government will maximise expenditure. Reward activities and Government will produce more activities. Reward the production of regulations and more regulations will be produced. Reward measurable improvements in health, education, employment, productivity and national prosperity, however, and Government’s entire culture begins to change. Ministries start asking not whether programmes have been delivered, but whether they have worked.
ULTIMATE MEASURE
Ultimately there is only one measure that captures the purpose of Government itself. Are the lives of Batswana better today than they were yesterday? If Botswana builds its performance contracts around that principle, the reform will become far more than another administrative initiative. It could fundamentally redefine what Government believes it exists to achieve.