Mogae in court

| Wednesday April 28, 2010 00:00

 

The controversial plot 55720, in contrast to the shy location of Village Court, stands out unabashedly, a stone's throw away from where Nelson Mandela Highway bids farewell to Gaborone, joining the 'North-South' arterial carriage way to the northern city of Francistown.

Mogae, known more for his candour rather than shyness, follows in the footsteps of his own former Minister of Education, Jacob Nkate, whose account of events was impeached by the prosecution who believe that 'it was laced with self serving inconsistencies'.

It will be, by all known historical precedent, the first time ever that a former president gives evidence in a court of law in Botswana.

Mogae appears as Public Witness Number 21 in the on-going graft case involving Garvas, the late Nchindo's son, former Debswana group secretary, Joe Matome, and Gloconda, a company co-owned by the farther and son twosome.

The former president gives evidence in relation to the first count.

According to the revised charge sheet, Joe Matome is alleged to have given false information to a person employed in the public service contrary to section 131 (a) of the penal code.

On or about December 21, 2000, Matome 'knowingly gave false information to then president, Mogae, by representing to him that there was a company called Tourism Development Consortium (PTY) Ltd, and that the company was a vehicle through which Debswana Diamond Valuing Company (PTY) Ltd, a company partially owned by the Botswana government, intended to contribute to the diversification of the Botswana economy'.

'In fact and in truth, he knew that such a company did not exist. Even when the company would eventually be incorporated it would not be a Debswana company but a company to be owned by the late Louis Nchindo,' the charge sheet alleges.

The particulars of the offence further state that 'by uttering this false information he caused Mogae to support the allocation of plot 55720 to the company, which the President would not have given had the true facts been known to him'.

Earlier court evidence was that Nkate had written in a sworn statement that when he allocated the plot to TDC, he knew at all times that he was allocating to a company owned by Debswana.

In court he said he had mistaken the sequence of events and changed his statement saying he knew that TDC was a private company that had nothing to do with Debswana.