Kgosi � The missing tape
Ntibinyane Ntibinyane | Friday January 9, 2015 17:13
The video was the missing part of the widely publicised transcriptions of the interrogation that was leaked to the press last year under the heading ‘Disc One’. The leaked transcriptions were however incomplete because they did not have the details of ‘Disc Two’ of the interrogation. Mmegi investigation team can now reveal the contents of this missing tape that was mysteriously held back.
The interrogation recording was done on February 27, 2012 at 2:15pm at DCEC director’s office in Gaborone. There are three people visible in the video; Isaac Kgosi, DCEC director Rose Seretse and Australian investigator and former DCEC deputy director Donald McKenzie.
Kgosi is seated facing McKenzie and has unbuttoned his shirt as if he is under some heat. He appears restless; he jitters and keeps swinging sideways and moving forward and backward as well as gesticulating uncomfortably on his chair. He listens to McKenzie with a menacing look but answers at times calmly but mostly with some impatience. Kgosi has a Coca-Cola can and a cellular phone on the table in front of him.
McKenzie is putting on a dark suit facing Kgosi on the right side of the camera angle. With calmness he relentlessly asks Kgosi uncomfortable questions about the operations of the DIS. His excellent composure with direct eye contact to his interviewee when questioning unnerves the spy boss whose eyes stray all over the room.
Seretse is facing the camera in the middle of the picture. She is mostly quiet, almost like a spectator in the heated sparring of McKenzie and Kgosi. Her interjections are rather rare but sharp.
DIS deputy’s relationship with Kgosi
The video starts with Kgosi making startling accusations about his then deputy director Tefo Kgotlhane saying he stole money and was a chronic gambler and alcoholic who could not be trusted. Kgosi says in the video that Kgotlhane stole his personal money from his briefcase that was left in the office.
Kgosi said he realised that his stash of money that he kept in his office was continuously depleting and decided to install covert cameras on the burglar senses to identify the culprit. The culprit turned out to be his deputy.
“When I confronted him, he first denied it. But when I showed him the cameras he admitted guilty and apologised,” Kgosi explained.
He said the total amount that his deputy pinched from his briefcase was 10,000 US Dollars (close to P100,000) of his personal money. When McKenzie probed why he kept such huge amounts in a briefcase Kgosi said he was about to go for an international trip so he had changed money at a local bank.
He was however not further questioned why he thought travelling with such huge amounts of cash was necessary. Later in the video Kgosi made another statement as to why he kept such amounts of money in the office. His explanation is that whenever he returns from an international trip he doesn’t sell international currencies but instead keeps them in his office. He told the investigators that when he started counting his residual foreign currencies he discovered that a few thousand Euros were missing.
Kgosi said he then reported his deputy’s behaviour to “the boss” (President Ian Khama) and then Minister of Defence, Justice and Security, Ramadeluka Seretse. He said he also told “the boss” that he would not sack him after President Khama advised him to do so. Kgosi said he decided to pardon his deputy because he wanted to protect the reputation of the DIS. The DCEC investigators pressed further on his decisions not to take actions against Kgotlhane;
McKenzie: But surely this was a huge risk to the DIS, to not only have somebody who had a drinking problem and gambling problem but to have a problem who would engage in a very serious dishonesty to support those problems, isn’t that a huge risk to the DIS?
Kgosi: Well, it is but the first thing is, it is country first before myself. It is country first before myself. You know I am such a person, who would not, when confronted by a problem, I don’t just brush the problem away, I don’t just shift a problem to someone else, I deal with the problem, so I said, I am going to deal with the problem. Because I needed him to be there, why I needed him was as we were starting, some people were new from Special Branch and I didn’t know them and I preferred to have someone who would know them, so then said fine, because he promised to pay back the money and everything and he apologised and I said okay fine and I told the boss that I am not going to bring the country nor the office into disrepute by taking him to court and so forth because he had apologised for it. And really I would say he did turn a new leaf from then. After that I said to him that should anything of that nature happen he is out of his job (sic).
McKenzie: And at all times you consulted the President; did you speak to anybody other than the president?
Kgosi: The minister… Mr. Seretse… and eventually I told my wife that someone has stolen my money and so forth. And I made sure that it was known by few people. I didn’t want it to go out. And I had to tell my lawyer, though my lawyer then lost respect for him. Really I vented out, I had to vent out on someone (sic).
McKenzie: And the minister, the president, your lawyer; none of these people suggested that you really had the responsibility to terminate the services of this person?
Kgosi: No, when I told the president at first thats what he said. But when I told him that it is country first before me then he said, ok, he agreed with me (sic).
McKenzie: I am just struggling to understand ‘the country first before you’ as a justification for keeping a thief.
Kgosi: (laughs) Unfortunately you see McKenzie, if something happens to him, he was working with me and he did something you know. I am someone who is not revengeful. I am someone who is not going to make decisions out of impulse. You see. I have thought about it a lot. I really. It tormented me. I thought about it a lot. And I thought just get rid of him and I thought you know what, with everything that was going on and the politics of the DIS and so forth. Really if I bring this up it is going to go out and if it goes go out something is going to be said and really it is the reputation of the DIS that was going to go down (sic).
McKenzie: So you have kept this person on to this day as your second in charge and you have done that, I would say primarily because you are trying to protect the good name of the DIS and the country and your concern is that would be a damage if it becomes a public knowledge that someone in such a senior job would engage in such improper act.
Kgosi: Yes
McKenzie: …I do see that you had quite a dilemma. I am just concerned about issues of corruption within the DIS and the possibility of corruption within the DIS and how you manage it. I can understand ‘your country before person’, it took me a while (sic). But I can understand it. I don’t know if I agree with it. It’s such a difficult issue. How do you manage that? ... Does it all fall back on you? …I feel you had to deal with such a difficult question all by yourself (Kgotlhane case). And it presents as a risk factor. My concern is that… he held the organisation to ransom because if you did sack him that would involve an outcome that was going to be damaging to the DIS.
Kgosi: …When you start something and this happened. My country comes first before anything else. I said should I take this decision because they are not going to be hammering the DIS they are going to be hammering even the President… If he had denied it when I said to him come and see the proof then I would have said, ok fine let’s now take a different angle to do so. Unfortunately he cried and said you know I was very stupid, I drunk when I did this…. When he apologized and said, my wife is pregnant, I have these problems at home and so forth. When I discussed this with my secretaries they came out and said he has never stolen before, he just took advantage of your kindness…. I would agree with you that he that technically he held the country at ransom but he was scared that he was going to be fired. After sometime he came to me and said thank you very much I thought you were going to kick me out. But to be honest with you he has never done that (sic).
Kgosi said it could have been embarrassingly bad for the DIS and the country to have a deputy director exposed as a thief and chronic gambler. There were allegations that Kgotlhane had threatened Kgosi to dare fire him if he wanted the DIS to be destroyed. Kgosi, however denies the allegations during the interrogation as the reason for not sacking Kgotlhane.
This week the media shy Kgotlhane told Mmegi that he was not aware that his former boss accused him of theft, alcoholism and gambling. “I wouldn’t know why he would say that (about me). Talk to him. I have done my job at DIS and retired. My retirement had nothing to do with my boss,” he said.
According to Kgotlhane he had a good relationship with Kgosi. “Even to this day we have a good relationship. I often visit him at his office and his home,” he said. Repeated efforts to talk to Kgosi were not successful.
DIS stockpile of vehicles
Kgosi revealed in the video that the DIS has a stockpile of around 120 new vehicles kept at three locations in Selebi Phikwe, Francistown and Gaborone.
The Spy Chief told his interrogators that these vehicles are registered to private individuals rather than DIS or government.
DCEC Director Seretse who put a figure at 300 raised the issue of vehicles. Kgosi laughed it off but the two corruption busters let him regain his composure and respond to the question. Kgosi apologised for the laughter and said, “What makes me laugh is that we have 300 that are lost. Those vehicles are not lost. We have kept them at our depots.”
According to Kgosi, the government in 2007 and 2008 gave the DIS funding before it was even established. He said this is why the DIS bought different kinds of vehicles and stockpiled them in different depots around the country. He said when the DIS had excess funding and he did not want to return the money he chose to buy excess vehicles.
“In case recession hits again, we would not need funding to buy vehicles,” he said, further revealing that from 2008 to 2011, the DIS did not buy new vehicles.
McKenzie: So you have a stock of vehicles? And you purchased such stock of vehicles because you had the funding to do so and you thought it was prudent public administration to spend that funding while you still have it because you may not be provided with additional funding later on? So you purchased a stock of vehicles and you have retained some of that stock in Selebi Phikwe? Is that the only place where you keep the stock?
Kgosi: Like I said some are in Gaborone and Francistown.
McKenzie: So there are three locations where you have stock of vehicles? Now these vehicles are often not used?
Kgosi: No there are not being used.
Questionable DIS recruitments
The Kgosi interrogation also sheds light on the way DIS recruit its operatives. The spy chief reveals that they do not follow the systems and procedures laid out by the Department of Public Service Management (DPSM).
He said at DIS unlike in other government agencies the lowest band is C Band so all the operatives that were recruited either from police, army or government security guards and were lower than C Band were all promoted to C band or higher.
Kgosi said they have what he termed “talent spotting,” where recruits are identified by officers and lured to join the spy agency at competitive packages.
He said, “When you are talent spotted, we get your CV and when we find that this the right person that we want we would get your salary advice slip and we would try to be par or more to attract you to come in”.
Kgosi told the DIS interrogators that his spy agency is “completely independent” from the DPSM recruitment procedures. Also, Kgosi stated, there were no set out human resources systems or polices at DIS.
In the video he explains that promotions were done through own assessment and negotiations between juniors and managers. As the boss he had final word on the promotions.
@mmegi.bw