Mzwinila wins, loses, lives to fight another day
Spira Tlhankane | Wednesday February 4, 2026 09:20
It was a partial victory which was carefully reasoned, legally restrained, and devastatingly precise. The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), armed with the full machinery of the Proceeds and Instruments of Crime Act (PICA), had descended on the Mzwinilas’ empire, which includes cash, farms, machinery, shares, vehicles, and real estate. The State was alleging corruption, money laundering, and possession of unexplained wealth. The application was brought ex parte, under a certificate of urgency, seeking to freeze almost everything.
But the High Court drew a line on Friday, and at the heart of the State’s case was fear that assets were being moved, sold, or spirited away beyond Botswana’s borders. The DPP alleged “that the Mzwinilas are dissipating the property that is the subject of investigations” and warned that if the court followed ordinary timelines, “there is the possibility of all the property having been dissipated when the matter is finally heard”.
There were even claims that property had been relocated to South Africa and that the Mzwinilas themselves were there, “raising suspicions that they have fled to that country.” Justice Motlhala ruled that despite delays, urgency has been established or proved, noting that different cases carry different degrees of urgency. That finding alone kept the State’s case alive. But Mzwinila did not sit quietly and came out swinging with five preliminary objections from abuse of process to dirty hands and failure to disclose seized financial evidence. On the issue of dirty hands and the abuse of the ex parte process, the court sided with the State. Having found that the DPP was not a party to parallel proceedings before other judges, Justice Motlhala ruled that the applicant “cannot rightly be accused of approaching this court with dirty hands.”
On alleged non-disclosure, the court was blunt. “The failure or omission by the applicant to disclose the seizure of the alleged information to the court is not fatal to this application.” One by one, the procedural roadblocks fell, but the real fight was yet to come. While the court accepted that restraint proceedings under PICA operate on a low threshold, it also made it clear that suspicion must still be explained property by property. “Even on the low standard of proof to be employed, I could not find any reason why the property I referred to above should be restrained.” That single sentence cracked the State’s case wide open.
Justice Motlhala faulted the DPP for failing to explain why several high-value properties and numerous shares were allegedly tainted. Among the assets the court released from restraint were farms at Tshwenetshwene and Mosetsanamontle, the industrial catering equipment workshop at Gamodubu, a commercial shopping complex and filling station at Mmadinare, residential plots at Lecheng and Phakalane, and crucially, “the numerous shares held at various companies”.
For the Mzwinilas, this was no small win. It meant parts of their business and investment life could continue unchoked by a blanket freeze. In Justice Motlhala’s ruling, however, there was where the State succeeded,d but celebration would be muted. The court confirmed restraint over vast swathes of property, including millions of pula in cash, farms, vehicles, tractors, heavy machinery, and residential plots.
The cash alone included “P700, 990.62 held in account number 5060792 at ABSA bank” and “P14, 080... held by Maruapula School”. The court found the investigator’s suspicions reasonable where large cash transactions, unexplained developments, and politically connected procurement intersected.
Justice Motlhala was particularly pointed on allegations that contractors linked to Dr Mzwinila’s former ministry bought equipment for the family.
“There is a suspicion that some contractors who won tenders awarded by that ministry bought some property for him, and this suspicion is being investigated. Pending the investigations, it is reasonable under the PICA framework to restrain the property,” Motlhala observed.
The court openly acknowledged the split outcome, noting, “As the applicant has not fully succeeded in his claim, I opine that it is only fair that he be awarded only a portion of the legal costs”.
The Mzwinilas were ordered to pay three-quarters of the costs, another reminder that this was not an acquittal, not yet.
The State walked away with significant restraints still in place. But it also suffered a public, reasoned rebuke for overreach. The Mzwinilas, meanwhile, clawed back critical assets and punctured the narrative of an all-encompassing illicit fortune.