Corruption court worsens judicial delays
Bame Piet | Thursday October 16, 2014 16:11
In the organisation’s 2013 annual report Seretse says “It was during the year under review that the Chief Justice formed what has now become the Corruption Court. This was so as to ease the workload of the magistrates so that corruption cases do not compete with other cases for attention.
The introduction of this court, however, meant that as a higher court, accused persons should first be committed for trial as required by the Criminal Procedure and Evidence Act and this process added to the delay in the disposal of cases,” says Seretse in the DCEC report.
She states that as at end of 2013 there were 171 cases at the Directorate of Public Prosecutions and 91 were before the courts. “It must be noted that the Criminal Justice System in Botswana is slow and does not act as a deterrent”.
Among the biggest challenges that are facing the DCEC is the conversion of foreign driving licenses into Botswana driving licenses where customers have found a loophole in the system.
“They find a way of obtaining driving licenses fraudulently in foreign countries and then come back to Botswana to convert these licenses,” the report says.
Other headache areas are: issues of land relating to forged title deeds, lease, certificates and bribery in allocation of land; acquisition of fraudulent driving licenses and road worthiness permits, vehicles issued with road worthiness permits without being tested; abuse of government empowerment schemes; abuse of office; poor corporate governance by some parastatals; and corruption in sponsorship for tertiary sponsorship.
Seretse says that during 2013 the DCEC cracked down on a syndicate of driving schools who were colluding with officials from the Department of Road Transport and Safety to issue fraudulent licenses. “In another case involving imported cars from Asia, one of the car dealers was arrested for manipulating the exportation of the same cars to another country.
Some neighbouring countries do not allow importation of the cars directly from Asia and can only enter their countries if they had been registered and used in Botswana for over six months,” she said. The dealer imported cars, registered them in Botswana without being used and then de-registered them before exporting them, the report says. On illicit land dealings, the DCEC identified a syndicate of land board employees who had colluded with a councillor to acquire over 200 plots fraudulently.
“The assailants got names and identity numbers of elderly citizens and produced forged land ownership certificates using those identity cards. These plots were sold to people who desperately needed land,” the report says.
Meanwhile, the DCEC has identified weak laws as a hindrance to effective war on corruption, such as lack of legislation of Forfeiture of Proceeds of Corruption, Whistle Blowing and Declaration of Assets, the latter legislation, which the government has consistently refused to debate and enact.