Get back what was stolen, and lock the door

The Monitor Editor | Tuesday June 23, 2026 12:23

That a single private law firm pocketed P6.5 million for just four cases, out of a total P11.1 million paid for 25 matters, reeks of a system that was not merely disorganised but open to abuse.

Bayford has taken a welcome first step by telling the Public Accounts Committee the truth. Now he must act decisively to ensure it never happens again and that any money lost to wrongdoing is recovered.

The figures are staggering. Whilst ordinary Batswana struggle with the rising cost of living, government was handing out millions of pula without proper oversight, without fair distribution of work, and without even bothering to check whether cases were being dragged out unnecessarily. The Attorney General himself admits there was little or no monitoring and that delays pushed up bills. As he rightly said, a lawyer’s time is stock in trade. Where was the state’s watchdog whilst private firms were billing with impunity?

Bayford’s new outsourcing policy, introduced in 2024, promises regular reporting and pairs private lawyers with attorneys from his chambers. That is sensible, but it does nothing to address the injustices of the past. The Attorney General must now commission a thorough, independent investigation into all outsourced cases between 2021 and 2026. Where there is evidence of overcharging, collusion, or deliberate foot-dragging to inflate fees, the full force of the law must follow. Wrongdoers should be prosecuted, and every thebe unjustly earned benefit must be clawed back. The message must be clear: those who cheat the taxpayer will not get away with it.

Equally worrying is the ballooning of the legal budget from P8.7 million to P16.9 million, much of it spent on disputes that Bayford concedes could have been avoided. When government ministries ignore the simple step of seeking legal advice early, they are gambling with public money.

The Attorney General is right to push for earlier involvement, but that alone is not enough. Accounting officers who neglect legal risks and land the state in costly, unnecessary litigation must face personal consequences. The proposal to let ministries manage their own legal costs, making them accountable for their own negligence, is a reform worth pursuing urgently.

The Public Accounts Committee has laid bare a pattern of laxity that went on for years. Bayford inherited this mess, but the responsibility to clean it up now rests squarely on his shoulders.