13 Mar 2017

The Attorney General’s Chambers (AGC) has developed an action plan geared towards addressing the backlog of cases at the Directorate of Public Prosecutions (DPP), the Minister of Defence, Justice and Security Mr Shaw Kgathi said on Wednesday.

Tabling the Attorney General’s Chambers budget estimates for the 2017/18 financial year in Parliament, Mr Kgathi highlighted that all five DPP offices in Gaborone, Lobatse, Palapye, Francistown and Maun are struggling with backlog cases.

The minister stated that there are 1 310 cases that have been pending before the courts for over 18 months in Gaborone alone.

“In addition, a total of 3329 dockets obtained from crime investigation agencies have been pending with the DPP in excess of eighteen (18) months,” he explained. Mr Kgathi pointed out that this challenge faced by the DPP requires both short and long term intervention measures.

“To address these challenges, the DPP, in collaboration with the Criminal Justice Forum, has drawn up an action plan to address the backlog of cases while taking into account related processes of the Botswana Police Service and the Administration of Justice.

The immediate implementable actions derived from the action plan were the appointment of a Backlog Eradication Task Team,” the minister added.

He said the deputy director of Public Prosecutions leads the task team which contains a special team of nine prosecutors focused on eradicating the backlog.

Mr Kgathi requested a sum of P206, 069, 680 for Attorney General’s recurrent budget and P41, 777, 019 for the development expenditure.

The minister stated that a total of P128, 226, 510 will cover salaries and allowances, while the rest of the money has been allocated for general expenses and supplies, departmental services, maintenance and running expenses, special expenditure, and councils, conferences and exhibitions.

He added that the development budget will cover the expansion of the Directorate of Public Prosecutions to districts to facilitate the start of decentralisation of the functions of the Attorney General’s Chambers, and the Directorate of Public Prosecutions, the restructuring of the Attorney General’s Chambers, construction of Maun and Palapye DPP offices and staff houses, and development and implementation of quality management system and adoption of e-services at the Attorney General’s Chambers.

Debating the budget, Member of Parliament (MP) for Gaborone Bonnington North, Mr Duma Boko said the office of the Attorney General should be capacitated so that it can be able to properly advice ministers before they bring Bills to Parliament.

He said ‘while it is the duty of the office of Attorney General to scrutinise and examine if Bills abide by the constitution, it is disappointing that there have been unconstitutional pieces of legislation being brought to Parliament.’

Also commenting on the budget, MP for Shashe West, Mr Fidelis Molao said the office of Attorney General should be given more resources to be able to train, attract and retain the best legal minds. He complained that the office was losing attorneys which caused shortage of staff, leading to backlog of cases.

He also proposed for the relevant ministry to be given a resident attorney to advice decisions on day to day basis, to avoid decisions being made without requisite legal advice.
MP for Mochudi West, Mr Gilbert Mangole called for Parliament to be responsible for the appointment of the Attorney General instead of the President of the country doing it. He said the current practice where the

Attorney General is appointed by the President leads to them being unable to work independently.

However, Parliament approved the budget on Thursday. ENDS