06 Mar 2022

Justice Abednego Tafa of Gaborone High Court has warned plaintiff in a case involving Debswana Mining Company, Mr Mompoloki Motshidi to avoid being evasive when answering questions in court.

He said such attitude could affect the credibility of the witness and dent his case.  “The way you answer questions counts on your credibility, the more evasive you are, the more your credibility gets eroded,” Justice Tafa warned.

Mr Motshidi who is the managing director of Infotack (Proprietary) Limited, has dragged the mining giant to court for failing to honour a P110 million contract for the services offered in 2018.

According to court records, Infotrac is suing Debswana for the recovery of a debt arising from a breach of a verbal contract, entered into by Infotrac managing director, Mr Motshidi and Debswana representatives, for some sensitive consultancy services.

However when being cross examined by the defendant’s attorney Mr John Carr-Hartley, the judge told the plaintiff  that his attorney would protect him from unfair questions from the defendance attorney. “If questions are unfair, your counsel will object, I will also not allow them,” Justice Tafa advised.

The caution came after Mr Carr-Hartley had pleaded with court to caution the witness for being evasive and difficult. Mr Carr-Hartley had put it to the witnesses that there were no agreement between Debswana and Infotrac, hence Debswana had not paid him.

“I put it to your that the agreement was between you and Mr Albert Milton on his personal capacity,” he said. However, Mr Motshidi objected the statement saying he was engaged by Debswana through its then head of security services.

He said the task for him was to lobby for the late Mr Milton to be the next general manager of Debswana, something that Mr Carr-Hartley disputed, saying Mr Milton was already the preferred candidate for the role.

 Mr Motshidi also told court that Infotrac had a history of undertaking assignment from Debswana without any written contract and the Debswana always paid without fail.

 He attributed such conduct to the sensitivity of the jobs he was doing for Debswana, which included among others providing spying equipment and gathering intelligence information on some company employees.

Mr Motshidi said whenever Debswana wanted his services, they would either send him a WhatsApp message, email or inform him directly, and he would tell them the figure for the job,before being given a go ahead to do the job.

He said was comfortable with the agreement as Debswana always paid him and they had built trust.  One of the witnesses, former permanent secretary to the President, Mr Cater Morupisi had earlier told court that he was aware of the engagement of Infotrac by Debswana, although he was not privy to the details.

The case continues on Thursday. ENDS