Private prosecution for BDC, NDB, BR top dogs on the cards
Innocent Selatlhwa | Thursday February 9, 2017 13:20
Keorapetse slammed the DPP for sitting on dockets involving head honchos at Botswana Development Corporation (BDC), Botswana Meat Commission (BMC) and Botswana Railways (BR). Speaking to Mmegi shortly after a response to his Parliamentary question, Keorapetse felt the DPP was not carrying out its mandate to prosecute in the said cases because senior Government officials were involved.
Keorapetse had asked the Minister for Defence, Justice and Security, Shaw Kgathi to confirm the referral of the corruption and economic crime cases involving the three organisations to the DPP from the Directorate on Corruption and Economic Crime (DCEC). The Botswana Congress Party (BCP) publicity secretary also wanted to know whether there are other cases which the DPP has not yet prosecuted, but were referred to them by the DCEC upon completion of investigations. He also wanted to know when the cases were referred and why they have not been prosecuted.
In his response, Kgathi said the BDC docket was received in 2014. “These are currently being investigated by the DCEC, and the DPP is assisting the DCEC with mutual legal assistance with a view to obtaining evidence from Denmark, Germany and China,” he said.
On BMC, Kgathi said one docket was received in November 2012. “However there was no prosecution in relation to the BMC docket on account of the fact that the Director of Public Prosecutions took the decision not to prosecute; such decision being based on insufficiency of evidence, and the view that criminal cases investigated by Parliament are not prosecutable as such investigation and the resultant collective evidence is tainted with illegality, the reason being that the mandate of Parliament does not include conducting a criminal investigation,” he said. Kgathi said two dockets concerning BR were received in September and October 2016 respectively. “The evidence with regard to the two dockets is still being studied, and a decision will be made in due course as to whether to charge or not,” he said.
The Minister said corruption cases in their nature are involving and highly complex. “The DPP has since taken steps to address the backlog of cases and to that end, has set up a specialised corruption unit with the specific mandate to handle corruption cases in the country,” he said. Keorapetse would not accept the Minister’s answers. “The former DPP director chose not to prosecute cases, we will see if the current one does. If nothing happens, we will seek legal advice with private prosecution in mind,” he said. Keorapetse said senior Government personnel are involved hence the cases take long. He dismissed the Minister’s explanation that politicians could have tainted investigations.
He said it was not a reason enough to drop the case. “This is just a political decision not to prosecute. We cannot have cases gathering dust for five years with no progress while there is plenty of evidence (in the cases),” he said.