The more indicators emerge of the difficult fiscal space within which government is operating, the higher the expectation amongst Batswana that the ongoing forensic audit will pinpoint and punish those whose greed contributed to the situation the country is in. The audit covers the years 2014 to 2024, a period when the country’s scores on Transparency International’s Corruption Perceptions Index dropped consistently, including a sharp dip in 2021 – the year after COVID-19 related emergency spending. Taxpayers’ frustrations are valid given that the last publicly available audit of public spending was for the year ended March 2022, more than three and a half years ago.
That last report, like many others, contained evidence of millions of pula misspent, wasted, abused or under-utilised, alongside the perennial trend of poor record-keeping across government’s vast footprint, a fact that hides other losses. Unlike the Auditor General’s reports, however, the teams of external auditors currently scouring the country and pouring over public spending, are looking for evidence of ill-intent, not just administrative mismanagement or bookkeeping errors. On March 20, when officially announcing the forensic audit, President Duma Boko set the bar high, boldly stating that the hunt will encompasses the entirety of government.
