26 Jun 2018

Botswana Police Service has detected a total of 381 drug cases between January and March this year, Minister of Defence, Justice and Security, Mr Shaw Kgathi, has said.

During the same period, Mr Kgathi said the estimated values of the type of drugs involved were as follows; 101kg of dagga at more than P1 million, 532g of Meth-cathinone at P53 202.76, 17 g of Cocaine at P1 719.32 and 14g of Khat at P1 352.43.

He said between January and March this year, a total of 146 cases were completed before courts, adding “cases detected during the period under reference are at different stages of prosecution.”

The disposal rate of drug related cases, he said, depended upon a chain of processes from investigation, prosecution and defence attorneys.

“Notwithstanding, in the ultimate, the speed of disposal of each case is influenced by factors surrounding it,” he added.

Furthermore, the minister said on June 19, Parliament passed the Illicit Traffic in Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Bill whose provisions had tightened investigation and prosecution scope, as well as penalties of drug dealers.

Nkange MP, Mr Edwin Batshu had asked how many drug related cases were detected by the Botswana Police Service between January and March 2018 and what type of drugs were involved and their estimated value.

The Nkange MP also wanted to know how many cases had been completed before the courts and how many were pending, if the rate at which drug related cases were disposed of was satisfactory and what the ministry would do to expedite the prosecution of drug dealers as it threatened the sanity of the nation. ENDS