BPFYL Dares State To Arrest Khama
Goitsemodimo Kaelo | Monday November 11, 2019 18:00
The allegations were revealed recently in an affidavit deposed in court in a case against a senior intelligence officer in the Directorate of Intelligence and Security, Welheminah Maswabi, code named ‘Butterfly’.
It is alleged that Khama and the former spy chief, Isaac Kgosi instructed Bank of Botswana to open three bank accounts that were used to loot public funds amounting to over P100 billion.
Maswabi is facing three counts of financing terrorism, possession of unexplained property and false declaration for passports that make her the key to the Pandora’s box of allegations coming out against Khama and others.
However, both Khama and Kgosi, who are mentioned in the allegations, have not been charged despite Maswabi spending more than two weeks in jail.
Now, the BPF youth wing has dismissed the allegations levelled against its patron and is challenging the State to arrest Khama if it (State) believes the allegations are true.
BPFYL secretary general, Bruce Nkgakile told the media at a press conference last Thursday that the allegations were baseless and nothing but a witch-hunt against Khama. “We are very worried by the attitude of the government trying to vilify citizens. The allegations that our patron directed Bank Of Botswana to release P100 billion into some accounts cannot be true. But since they have arrested Butterfly, why not arrest Khama as well since they say he is involved,” Nkgakile said. Nkgakile further said it could not be true that such amount of money was looted from public coffers. He argued that looking at the size of Botswana’s economy, if such amount were to disappear, the economy would be crippled.
“We are challenging the government to arrest him because if you have already charged someone and you claim to know whom he committed the crime with, then you should arrest him.
We are also happy to announce to you that the two banks that are alleged to have been used to stash this money have actually responded to refute the existence of the accounts mentioned,” he said.
He said they intend to petition the South African High Commission as well as encourage its members to close accounts with Absa bank over the issue.
Khama also recently denied the allegations and revealed intentions to sue the state.
“My reaction is that, once you get over the initial reaction of astonishment of such a ridiculous allegation, I will say it is laughable.
Completely laughable, because if you loot P100 billion, I wouldn’t know how to loot one million not even billions,” Khama said in a recent interview with Mmegi, which is The Monitor sister publication.