This is coupled with the high costs of maintaining properties under receivership due to prolonged legal battles that delay their disposal. The Minister of Justice and Correctional Services, Nelson Ramaotwana, acknowledged the difficulties, stating that efforts are underway to secure long-term storage facilities. He was presenting 2025/2026 recurrent and development budget proposals before Parliament this week. “The prolonged litigation process hampers the timely disposal of seized assets, leading to increased maintenance costs and storage constraints. However, we are working on solutions to ensure efficiency in managing these properties.
The office of the Receiver is responsible for managing and preserving assets confiscated from criminal activities until their final disposal as per court rulings,” Ramaotwana said. While the government seeks long-term solutions, there are concerns over the financial burden associated with maintaining such properties. Ramaotwana said the delay in resolving legal matters has led to a growing backlog of properties under receivership, further straining available resources. He further stated that in the interim, the office is in collaboration with other law enforcement agencies for purposes of storage of properties and has also recently embarked on using proceeds from operation of some properties like rentals that are income generating for their maintenance and upkeep. “The active role of the office of the Receiver in managing the confiscated assets trust fund is apparent in the substantial increase in total funds, now standing at P8.6 million from P6.4 million the previous year. The increase of 33.9% is attributed to successful auctions subsequent to final forfeitures and continued administrative deposits from law enforcement agencies like the Botswana Police Service (BPS), the Botswana Unified Revenue Service (BURS) and the Directorate on Corruption and Economic Crime (DCEC),” he said.
The minister revealed that as of January 2025, the office holds property portfolio of diverse types such as real estate, vehicles and plant machinery, livestock, personal effects, furniture, money and business, which experienced a modest increase to the total value of P179.9 million. “This represented a noticeable 9.4% increase from the previous year’s value of P 164.5 million. This buttresses the effectiveness of the office in handling new court orders and managing property dispositions,” he said However, the minister said efforts to enhance efficiency in the handling of proceeds of crime remain a priority, as the government continues to explore ways to address the persistent challenges facing the office of the Receiver. He explained that funds in the confiscated assets trust fund are used to compensate and rehabilitate victims of crime and for capacity building and training programmes for law enforcement agencies involved in the fight against crimes such as money laundering racketeering and terrorism financing.
“For the year under consideration, no compensations to the victims were made as there were no claims received. The office of the Receiver continues to undertake several reform programmes, projects and activities aimed at contributing to the delivery of quality service to the nation,” he said. Ramaotwana further stated that the confiscated assets trust fund management committee has been constituted and started operating and it is responsible for overseeing the management of the fund and for advising the Receiver with respect to the fund. According to the minister, the committee has since produced draft guidelines to facilitate the effective utilisation of the funds in the fund and is in the process of procuring a confiscated asset management system. “A preferred partner has been identified through technical design competition (hackathon), which was facilitated by the Digital Transformation Coordination Office (DTCO). The system will provide effective and efficient management of property under receivership, which is currently being done manually, and not in an effective and efficient manner given the diverse types of property under receivership,” he said. Ramaotwana said warehouse development in Gaborone at final design stage is one of the projects being procured through development manager model approach but is currently suspended.
On a positive note, he said development of Francistown warehouse is carried out in-house through design and build and it is at technical evaluation stage whilst the Lobatse warehouse development is at ITT vetting stage. Meanwhile, Ramaotwana revealed that the government has engaged the services of an audit firm to conduct a forensic investigation of the previous government ministries and agencies. He said in the event the forensic investigation reveals commission of an offence such as corruption or money laundering, the matter will be referred to the relevant authorities and the policy of government will be to prioritise civil forfeiture of the proceeds of crime over criminal prosecution. The minister stated that the prioritisation of civil forfeiture of proceeds of crime will be to ensure that government recovers ill-gotten monies and other properties from the perpetrators in the quickest manner.
He said it is anticipated that civil forfeiture of proceeds of crime is going to cause a surge in property under the custody of the receiver. “The ministry is also going to benchmark with jurisdictions that have other forms of asset recovery to fast track and maximise on recovery of proceeds and instruments of crime. It is against the above background that my ministry is going to ensure that the office of the Receiver is fully resourced to be able to meet the demands emanating from recovery of assets,” Ramaotwana. For the financial year 2025/2026, the office had requested for the amount of P29.01 million under recurrent budget but only P17.95 million was approved, which according to the minister is not enough to cater for the surge in property, which will be caused by the results of the anticipated audit.
