13 Mar 2025

The Assistant Minister of Justice and Correctional Services, Mr Augustine Nyatanga says Office of the Ombudsman exist to provide remedies for administrative injustices and human rights violations.
Presenting the Ombudsman budget for the financial year 2025/2026 on Wednesday, he said Ombudsman was mandated by the law to investigate complaints of improper administrative conduct on the part of ministries, departments and government agencies.
He said the office also investigated human rights violations by ministries, departments and government agencies.
Mr Nyatanga said for the recurrent expenditure, the Office of the Ombudsman requested Parliament to approve P66 584 100 and the development budget of P10 200 000.
He said since the coming into effect of the human rights mandate in July 2023, the office received 35 cases of human rights violations, which were still under investigation.
Mr Nyatanga said during the financial year 2024/2025, the Ombudsman registered 1 330 new complaints as at end of January 2025, compared to 695 in 2023/2024.
Out of this total, 554 complaints were resolved. Mr Nyatanga said the Office of the Ombudsman continued to resolve cases, although it has not attained the desired high-resolution rate.
However,  he said a number of reasons were behind the shortcoming, including non-response and or delayed response by ministries, departments and government agencies.
Mr Nyatanga said the office currently had 37 legal investigators delivering on core mandate posing a challenge of delivery as the mandate had expanded not only in the area of investigation but also on other functions such as public education and advocacy as well as protection and promotion of the enjoyment of human rights.
Debating the proposed funding, Mr Kenny Kapinga of Okavango West constituency said the Office of the Ombudsman measured the quality of democracy of any country, adding it was also used to measure accountability, openness and good governance.
He said much could not be said now though it was doing well during its formative years.
He said the Ombudsman must guide government to respect the rule of law. Mr Kapinga said most of its customers were low ranking public officers and members of the public financially limited to engage legal representation.
“Our experience is that the Ombudsman is not serving them accordingly. It does not have powers to serve them. It does not have powers to protect the least of God’s brethren,” he said
In neighbouring South Africa, Mr Kapinga said institutions such as the Ombudsman were classified in the constitution as Chapter nine institutions giving them immunity against potential political intimidation.
He said the new government must commit to ensuring that the office of the Ombudsman was independent and not handicapped to do its mandate, adding such must start with who must appoint the Ombudsman.
He said to execute the mandate, Ombudsman must have security of tenure to allow him/her to serve without fear or favour.
He said one must not be appointed to the Office of the Ombudsman as a favour.
“They must do their job without fear or favour,” he said. Mr Kapinga also advised that the human rights mandate be removed from the Office of the Ombudsman, adding that the function must be run separately, under the Human Rights Commissioner.
He also said the recommendations from Ombudsman must be obligatory.
Currently, he said the Ombudsman could not enforce his findings against departments and institutions to execute such recommendations without fail.
Mr Victor Phologolo of Kanye South said the Office of the Ombudsman staffing was inadequate and lacking requisite skills to investigate and finalise reports on time.
He said a fully functional Office of the Ombudsman would result in lawfulness, as the concerned institutions would act by enforcing its recommendations.
“We want a vibrant institutions to assist government achieve its human rights centred mandate. You compromise individual’s lives by delaying and denying justice,” he said.
MP Phenyo Segokgo of Tlokweng emphasised that Ombudsman must be independent from the executive arm of government. He said the office was overwhelmed by workload resulting in delay of cases. ENDS