BOTSWANA’s reputation as a democratic, corruption-free country has been shattered by recent scandals which forced three ministers, including the Vice-President, to step down.
Even President Ketumile Masire conceded in a newspaper interview that Botswana’s image had been soiled. But he said there were no plans to call early elections despite the fall from grace of his trusted friend, Vice-President Peter Mmusi. Botswana’s next general elections are due in 1994.
The first scandal involved the Botswana Housing Corporation (BHC), a parastatal housing monopoly whose general manager was killed in a road accident under very mysterious circumstances in February. The wrecked car of the BHC general manager, Joe Letsholo, was found containing P8000 cash. Later on when his office was searched by senior police officers in the presence of permanent secretary to the President, Joseph Legwaila, and commissioner of the police, Simon Hirschefeldt, P250 000 in cheques and hard cash was found in his safe and another P4 000 cash in his desk drawer.
The discovery of the cheques, mostly written in his favour, sent panic waves though Botswana’s establishment. It is said some of them, believed to be kickbacks, came from construction companies owned indirectly by senior people in government as well as parastatals and the private sector.
This has prompted people to question the tendering procedures for BHC housing projects which are found in Botswana towns. It is alleged that the companies that have won most of the contracts were directly or indirectly owned by top people in the government, parastatals and private sector, all of them linked very closely with the ruling Botswana Democratic Party (PDP) which has been in power since the country’s independence in 1965.
The BHC scandal has already claimed assistant minister of local government, land and housing, Michael Tshipinare, who is implicated. Tshipinare, who was an assistant to Peter Mmusi, is alleged to have received half a million pula from a South African company called Spectra Botswana.
A Botswana weekly paper, Mmegi, alleged Tshipinare travelled with Joe Letsholo to Johannesburg to clinch the deal to put up a P53 million BHC headquarters building whilst some local construction company had offered to do the same job for P31 million.
The South African company had promised Tshipinare money, according to a letter published by Mmergi, if it won this tender. The amount involved is believed to be P500 000. It is alleged he was given this money to settle his loan with the National Development Bank which was about to auction his farm for failing to pay. Sources within the BDP say Tshipinare has since settled his bank loan.
It is alleged that the Mmusi-Letsholo-Tshipinare axis operated through a number of companies. These companies, which always had inside information, won most BHC tenders.
Botswana’s second major scandal concerned land allocations in the peri-urban villages surrounding Gaborone, particularly Mogoditshane village which is almost a suburb of Gaborone.
The country’s Vice-President, who is BDP national Chairman and SADCC council of ministers’ chairperson, Peter Mmusi, and BDP secretary general and agricultural minister, Daniel Kwelagobe, were forced to resign because of illegal land and property deals exposed by a presidential commission chaired by former minister Englishman Kgabo. The much acclaimed Kgabo report alleges that Mmusi and Kwelagobe used their positions to acquire land.
Mmusi is alleged to have illegally acquired chunks of land in Mogoditshane and forced the Land Board to illegally allocate land and his cabinet colleague Daniel Kwelagobe. But in terms of Botswana’s laws, the Land Board owns all non-freehold land in trust to their communities. Citizens only have rights of use. The Land Board is a statutory body and it has the final say on use of land in non-freehold areas of the country.
Land Boards and the BHC fall under the Ministry of Local Government, Land and Housing, which was Mmusi’s portfolio before the scandal ruined his credibility.
Both implicated ministers and Tshipinare are from the south. They still remain members of Parliament.
The opposition Botswana National Front (NPF) has called on the government to release other commissions’ reports which have been shelved and University of Botswana students have requested President Masire to ask for a new mandate by calling fresh elections.
The BHC scandal continues and the suspicion is that it might claim more victims-senior public officers and possibly politicians. –AIA
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