Reputation Is All That Matters As High Court Restores Simbi Phiri�s Dignity
Monday, September 11, 2017
When a sustained media frenzy built around him in the last 12 months, suggesting that he had tried to sneak money into Botswana as the crime busters, the Directorate on Corruption and Economic Crime (DCEC) froze all his bank accounts in a widely publicized move, for Phiri, it was the dignity that was at stake than the cry for the so called frozen money, P25 million, at the time.
It could not help when the unsuspecting media was sold a juicy line supposedly by the investigators that Phiri had allegedly been caught with USD 8.8 million in the boot of his car, before the truth finally came out in court papers that in actual fact, Phiri had mistakenly not declared USD 86 000, when he declared USD 800 000 at the Tlokweng boarder in one trip undertaken on 27 April, 2016, and that he had mistakenly and genuinely not declared USD 200 000, when he declared USD 300 000 in an earlier trip undertaken in July 26, 2015.
When the State cannot rely on its own machinery to pursue suspected wrongdoing, repairing that machinery must become a national priority.The establishment of a Special Investigations and Asset Recovery Task Force may help government respond to the immediate challenge. However, Botswana cannot afford to leave the Directorate on Corruption and Economic Crime (DCEC) and the Directorate of Public Prosecutions (DPP) struggling whilst building...