Appearing before the 61st Public Accounts Committee (PAC) this week, Attorney General (AG) Mmako Abram revealed that amongst their challenges is the inability to retain good lawyers, and the situation has become a crisis. “After lawyers gain experience and learn to master the job, they leave us for greener pastures in the private sector. “We have become a training ground, and all we do is recruit new and rookie lawyers into our system,” she told the PAC sitting. Abram added they have since realised that they lose lawyers to law firms and the corporate sector because government remuneration for legal practitioners is not competitive. She highlighted that what hurts them the most is that lawyers leave the AG at crucial time when the latter is handling complex cases. “These are the cases which involve new areas of the law, and the experienced are the ones best suited to handle them because of experience. In the end, we are left in hopelessness as these lawyers leave us,” Abram noted.
The AG added that even the rookie lawyers who join them are only handful and most of them join private practice straight from law school. She said as a result, the AGC is thin on the ground and is experiencing shortages because of the lawyers who leave for greener pastures. Abram indicated that even though they have shortage of workforce, they work hard because they took an oath to serve the public of Botswana. “There are some cases that we win. Last year, there were about 13 cases before the Court of Appeal, and we won them all,” Abram revealed. The AG disclosed that they have about 37 litigators, including rookie lawyers. She also pointed out that as a result, one lawyer usually handles 200 cases, and it consequently becomes difficult to produce quality work. She said this also slows the speed at which they deliver. Abram also admitted that they have lost many labour cases involving government and public servants. She said to improve the situation, they have also expanded their offices to limit travel. Abram said even though the staff complement is short, they even sleep in the office to make sure that even a body like Parliament does its job of making laws. She also revealed that as the country develops, there is more demand for legal services. “Even ministers and permanent secretaries are complaining that it is slow for legal services to reach their ministries. AGC together with the DPP has a serious staff shortage, and it is now what we can call a crisis,” she emphasised.
