12 Mar 2019

Minister of Defence, Justice and Security, Mr Shaw Kgathi has requested Parliament to approve his ministry’s P375 million budget proposals for the 2019/2020 financial year.

Presenting the Administration of Justice budget proposals, Mr Kgathi stated that it comprised of a recurrent budget of P313.9 million and P61 million for development budget.

He said the recurrent budget represented an increase of nine per cent of last year’s approved budget, and attributed the increase to an increase in salaries and allowances which would cater for established employees salaries and ad-hoc interpreters allowance which were increased from P150 to P300 per day.

The development budget, Mr Kgathi explained, presented a 38 per cent decrease below the 2018/2019 budget. 

The budget, he added, would cover infrastructure projects such as the completion of the Kanye and Broadhurst magistrate courts, maintenance of court facilities and the refurbishment of different facilities across the country.

It would also cater for maintenance of judges’ houses, purchase of law books for new editions and new judges, procurement of motor vehicles, improvements to court security, improvements to houses for magistrates, construction of a purpose built in Serowe and staff houses using a Public Private Partnership (PPP) arrangement and computerisation projects, he said.

Giving an overview of the 2018/19 performance, Minister Kgathi said the 2019 World Justice Rule of Law Index had placed Botswana on position 44 out of 126 countries while Botswana’s global ranking on civil and criminal justice had been placed at 41 out of 126 countries.

He said the performance was encouraging, but that there was still more to be accomplished in terms of turnaround times for disposal of criminal and civil matters.

The minister pointed out that to ensure a conducive environment for delivery of justice, the AOJ had embarked on refurbishing existing courts particularly those whose state of despair was unbearable and compromised service delivery.

He said the AOJ had completed maintenance and refurbishment projects of magistrate courts in Mahalapye, Maun, Kasane and Francistown.

In addition, Mr Kgathi noted that shortage of office accommodation remained a challenge, adding that provision of caravans as temporary offices had been secured to address the situation.

“There is training and capacity building for AOJ staff in order to expand the knowledge base of judicial staff by training them on court administration, legal interpretation, translation and stenograph usage,” he said.

He said most judges had been trained in new legislation such as the Anti-Human Trafficking Act, and that the ministry had embarked on public outreach, awareness and confidence initiated educational tours in an effort to improve good work ethics and culture of excellent service delivery. ends