We had decided to go about it as clandestinely as we could in a bid to avoid meddlesome interlopers. For the uninitiated, a meddlesome interloper is an acceptable, alternative appellation for a politician. We were at count six of an ever expanding catalogue of crimes when the reception staff asked if they could put a call through. A politician was on the line. He wanted to know if it was true that we were intending to charge the suspect and when that would be. I dithered. Then he asked if a charge sheet had been prepared. Politely, he told me he was in some plush hotel by a crocodile infested river in northern Botswana. My correspondent was well known to me. I would otherwise have told him to take a hike and waited for the dismissal letter. I conceived a picture of this gentleman with our draft charge sheet on hand, sipping on a martini with bikini clad girls watching elephants mating when I had had only three hours of sleep. Calling his bluff, I asked him to fax a copy through. In a moment, a young lady entered my office and politely handed me a fax copy of our six count draft. The team was rattled. It took a thorough and successful enquiry for team morale to be fully restored. Leaks can be useful to the media. They can also be very disruptive to service.
On two successive issues, the Sunday Standard featured categorically distinct communication allegedly sourced from and forming part of the Directorate of Intelligence Services (DIS) intelligence work. Not unexpectedly, the source was concealed. Its correctness cannot, therefore, be ascertained. One is a strategic report on positions to adopt against the opposition in order to prolong Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) rule.
