We are unsafe under Masisi’s leadership - Keorapetse

Pini Bothoko | Friday November 10, 2023 17:27

Keorapetse said this when responding to the State of the Nation Address (SONA) that was delivered on Monday by the President. He revealed that in 2023 alone, Botswana recorded 215 murder cases, 1, 718 rape cases and 1, 331 defilement cases. “We are unsafe under this President as a nation, total serious selected offences stand at 12, 853. This year alone as of September, 239 Batswana killed themselves and last year the number stood at 391. Moreover, the police have recorded 11, 566 accidents exacerbated by bad roads such as the notorious A3 road, which has been the outstanding President’s promise since 2018,” he said. Keorapetse stated that according to Bertelsmann Stiftung’s Transformation Index (2022) since the last review period, the power of elected political representatives to govern appears to have deteriorated, with President Masisi seeming to be intolerant of his opponents. “The director general of the DISS, Peter Magosi, appears to be above the rules, as he has continuously undermined fundamental elements of democratic procedures and institutions, including the Directorate on Corruption and Economic Crime (DCEC). President Masisi has ignored calls to dismiss Peter Magosi,” he said.

Furthermore, Keorapetse said the report is not surprising because under Masisi’s presidency, a record number of five legislators and journalists have been detained by law enforcement agencies, especially the DIS, which also seized their phones for more than a year. Keorapetse explained that most, if not all of the said arrests, were made without warrants and were without any legal basis or reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing as almost all have not been criminally charged. “The meddling of the DIS in tenders in the last five years has been unprecedented. It purportedly does security clearance and has used this to interfere in government procurement system. Because of the DIS meddling, a company was paid P100 million plus after it was elbowed out of a water project tender for frivolous claims that it was a threat to National security,” he said. He stated that the company and its directors are based in Botswana and have never been charged for any wrongdoing related to national security. Additionally, he said the company, which took over the project, is more expensive than the previous one by about P200 million.

He said as a result, a Motswana taxpayer will or has paid a total of close to P300 million extra because of the DIS. Keorapetse said the president deliberately omitted to focus on key challenges facing this country which are unemployment, health and education crisis, inefficient government and corruption. He said what many Batswana expected was a critical, honest and sincere self-appraisal of the prevailing political and economic conditions. “The expectations in part emanate from his five years of political leadership in the high office of President. It is the 6th SONA speech and what jarringly stands out in his speeches is the affinity for self-trumpeting, which clearly was on steroids on Monday. I believe many of our countrymen and women never thought they’d have a braggart in such a high office,” he said. Moreover, Keorapetse described Masisi’ tenure as ‘five years of infamy’ stating that the 2019 General Election was glaringly not free, unfair, secretive and lacked credibility. He added that the Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC) leader was harassed by the police, the DIS and BURS among others. “The IEC Secretary was on short-term contract contrary to the provision of the Constitution. There was a contrast between 2019 Gazetted election officers and those that actually conducted elections.

The IEC informed parties in 2019 that they had identified a printing company in South Africa to print ballot papers. However, printing of some ballot papers was done at Government Printers, and a whistleblower was fired for speaking out through an affidavit, notwithstanding the existence of a whistle blowing law,” Keorapetse said.