Prison guards suspended as jails become smuggling hubs
Spira Tlhankane | Wednesday June 25, 2025 14:00
In a letter addressed to Ramaotwana before the apex court condemned him to the penitentiary, Morupisi said the situation at the Village Prison was overcrowded and inhabitable.
He added the place had turned into a commercial drug business run by a cartel of security force officials.
Responding to a question in Ntlo Ya Dikgosi yesterday, Ramaotwana acknowledged that he received the letter and was aware that some of the concerns Morupisi raised were happening right inside Botswana prisons.
'We know about these things like overcrowding in prisons and that sometimes when we do random searches we find drugs and cellphones. Our geysers are not working as well,' the minister admitted.
Ramaotwana revealed that overcrowding is there because the number of inmates exceeds a correctional facility's designed capacity.
He disclosed that Central Prison amongst others has a carrying capacity of 112, but currently it houses more than 300 inmates.
'Some of the prisons are overcrowded because inmates connected to offences like murder, for example, can only be taken to Maximum prison,' he said.
He added that when their pro-human rights government secures the funds it will strive to increase capacity in the overcrowded prisons and make them habitable.
Meanwhile, Ramaotwana has revealed that relatives of inmates smuggle cellphones into prisons by hiding the devices inside bar soaps during visitation.
He said in the end some inmates use the cellphones to defraud people and do other criminal activities from inside their cells.
Morupisi in his letter had claimed that smuggled cellphones are used to swindle money from members of the public and that unregistered SIM cards are widely used.
Ramaotwana also admitted that some of the drugs and cellphones smuggling is suspected to be facilitated by prisons officials and that they have suspended some employees pending investigations.
'Some of the cellphones smuggled into prisons belong to some of the prison guards,' he said.
Morupisi in the letter alleged that there is a cartel of criminals made up of police and Directorate of Intelligence and Security (DIS) agents.
Ramaotwana pointed out that they were not aware of DIS and police involvement in drugs and cellphones smuggling, but only know of the prison staff. The minister was responding to a question from Bangwato paramount chief Ian Khama.
Khama had asked whether Ramaotwana was aware that a letter was written to him by the former Permanent Secretary to the President, Morupisi, about the conditions in prison.
The minister, however, rubbished Morupisi's claims of there being no rehabilitation programme in prisons and rather there being slavery.
Morupisi had alleged that prison guards send inmates on errands that do not add any value to their rehabilitation.
'We have rehabilitation programmes like agriculture, building, carpentry, and character moulding ones like counselling and (stopping) substance abuse.
'These programmes are conducted by experts such social workers and pastors.'