06 Mar 2016

Parliament has approved budget proposals for the Attorney General’s Chambers for the 2016/17 financial year.

 Presenting the proposals on Thursday, the Minister of Defence, Justice and Security, Mr Shaw Kgathi requested over P5 million and over P198 million for the AGs Chambers’ development and recurrent budgets respectively.

 Under the development budget, Mr Kgathi explained that P1 million would be allocated to the Doing Business Reform initiative to complete the restructuring of the AGs Chambers through a consultant.

He said the tender to engage the consultant was floated in January this year and closed on February 23..

 “We are hopeful that at the beginning of the financial year, the consultant will have been engaged and started work,” he said.

  He said the remaining amount of just over P4 million would be used to procure vehicles for decentralisation of the chambers in its effort to open offices in Tsabong and Selebi-Phikwe. The two offices, he added, would ease pressure on the Francistown and Gaborone officers.

Under the recurrent budget, Minister Kgathi said over P122 million had been allocated to salaries and allowances. He explained that there had been an increase of over P14 million which he attributed to new posts availed by the Directorate of Public Service Management (DPSM) for the envisaged new offices to be opened.

Over P8 million, he said, would be used to cover internal travelling and transport expenses, particularly by state counsel who had to attend court cases at the High Court and magistrate courts.

Furthermore, he said over P46 million would be used to cover general expenses and supplies. 

He indicated that there had also been an increase to the account of over P3 million that had occurred under legal costs to cover legal fees.

He said the increase in legal costs was due to the influx of complex and often prolonged litigation which necessitated the engagement of external counsel to ease the workload. The minister told Parliament that over P3 million would be used under the departmental services account to procure library books for the AGs Chambers headquarters and the Directorate of Public Prosecutions (DPP) in Gaborone, Maun, Lobatse, Francistown and Palapye.

Under special expenditure, Mr Kgathi said over P4 million would be used to replace 11 boarded vehicles. 

The minister assured parliamentarians  that they would work hard to provide quality legal services to the government and Batswana. Ends