12 Sep 2018

Prosecution in the P250 million National Petroleum Fund (NPF) case have successfully petitioned the court to postpone the case to November.

The prosecution intended to commit the matter to the High Court.

When briefing the court, Mr Tyron Mokgathong, from the Directorate of Public Prosecutions (DPP) said they  wanted to amend the change sheet, which the defence premised as holding charge sheet. He told the court that in the November mention they would have filed the charge sheet and served the defence with all necessary documents for trial.

However, when responding to the defence’s query that up to now they have not taken plea though the defence had always been prepared to take plea, Mr Mokgathong said this was not possible now since the matter would be going to the High Court.

In his ruling Gaborone Broadhurst Magistrate, Mr Gaseitsewe Tonoki, who was holding fort for the yet to be appointed Regional Magistrate-South, ordered that the prosecution should file the new charge sheet and served any additional accused if any by November 29, 2018 when the case would be coming for mention.

Mr Mokgathong had earlier on indicated that the prosecution was likely to charge more suspects but for now they had not served the suspects with any charge sheet. For this the court ordered if they were charged they should be summoned to court on the next mention date.

Earlier on attorney representing Bakang Seretse, Khulaco (Pty) Ltd and Kenneth Kerekang, Mr Kgosietsile Ngakaagae said though magistrate Tonoki was not seized with this matter he needed to upraise him and put on record that the matter has been before the court for 10 months now and was constantly postponed at the instance of the prosecution; on empty promises of attending to concerns raised by the defence.

He said he was surprised to hear that the prosecution wanted to commit the matter to the High Court while they came before the court today for the sole reason that plea would be taken and recorded without fail. He also noted that they have been begging that they take plea so that they could prepare for Case Management Conference (CMC) and ultimately set trial dates, to no avail.

Attorney Ngakaagae in addition said at the most the prosecution should drop the charges and come to court when they were ready for trial. He nonetheless said if the prosecution wanted to commit the matter to the High Court it should serve them with all necessary documents before going that route.

For his part attorney representing Botho Leburu Mr Jao Carlos Salbany said the DPP was in contempt of the court order which directed that plea should be taken today but have not bothered to explain to the court why it has failed to do so. He further noted that the current holding charge was not informed by the law, wondering why the prosecution hasten to bring the accused to court before investigating the matter.

Attorney Salbany additionally applied that the accused should be excused from reporting themselves fortnightly to the police but instead report to the court during their court appearances. However magistrate Tonoki said the issue would be looked into in the next mention.

According to the particulars of the offence the accused persons Bakang Seretse, Khulaco (Pty) Ltd, Botho Leburu and Kenneth Kerekang are said to have on a date unknown to the prosecution but between September 5, 2017 and November 27, 2017 in Gaborone acting jointly and with common purpose received, possessed, disguised and disposed P250million knowing or suspecting or having reasonable grounds to know or suspect that the money was derived or realised in whole or in part, directly or indirectly from the commission of a confiscation offence.

Seretse is the managing director of Khulaco (Pty) Ltd while Leburu is director of Khulaco. On the other hand Kerekang is executive director of BERA and he was recently suspended from his work without pay.  ENDs