“(Nchindo requested that) I should stop the prosecution and that if I fail, he would reveal that President Ketumile Masire was bailed out, that BDP has been sponsored or funded by Debswana during elections”
Former President Festus Mogae accusing Nchindo of trying to blackmail him into stopping the criminal case against him, quoted by the weekly newspaper The Guardian. As I have stated on a number of occasions, when I became President in 1980. I quickly discovered that I ceased to have control over my own time and thus could no longer actively attend to my farming interests. It was in this context that I welcomed an offer by Louis Nchindo of De Beers, as the company then had its own extensive agricultural interests in the region, to assist me in recruiting a manager for the farm that I was then struggling to maintain in Ghanzi. A loan programme was thus also put into place to finance the said individual’s employment. In this regard it should be noted that I provided collateral through the sale of my own properties. While this was a private business arrangement it was never a secret.
