16 Oct 2016

Minister for Presidential Affairs, Governance and Public Administration, Mr Eric Molale said the Botswana Police Service (BPS) dog section helps in the fight against illicit drug trafficking and other sophisticated crimes within the country.
Responding to a question in Ntlo ya Dikgosi recently, Mr Molale said however due to operational sensitivity, they could not disclose the number of trained dogs except that they specialised in different fields such as narcotics, explosives, ivory and rhino horns detections as well as tracker dogs, among others.
He also indicated that due to financial and competing needs, they were unable to set up dog units throughout the country.
Funds permitting, he added, dogs would in future be deployed in strategic and or selected areas to assist in the fight against crime.
He further said currently dogs were deployable anywhere in the country on an urgent need basis and immediately returned to base as soon as the urgent need was addressed.
Kgosi Kgomotso Boiditswe of Serowe region had asked the minister the number of trained sniffer dogs in the country.
Kgosi Boiditswe further wanted clarification on why dogs were only kept at the Special Support Group (SSG) unit and not distributed to other security units like the Drugs and Narcotics Unit and other police stations. ENDS