14 Mar 2023

The Ministry of Justice is considering to equip security companies with weapons to control cash heists and Automated Teller Machine (ATM) blasts, Parliament has heard.

This was said by Minister of Justice, Mr Machana Shamukuni in response to a parliamentary question on Monday.

Mr Shamukuni said over P22.6  million cash was stolen in all heists, bank robberies and ATM blasts in the past five years, out of which about P5 million was recovered.

The minister also told Parliament that in effort to fight incidents of cash heists, law enforcement agencies collaborated with the private security industry and the banking sectors and came up with a comprehensive response hence the reduced number of incidents.

“There are no plans to deploy retired police and Botswana Defense Force (BDF) personnel to assist law enforcement in control of these crimes as they are now in control,” said Minister Shamukuni.

Member of Parliament for Serowe South, Mr Leepetswe Lesedi had asked the minister to state the number of cash heists, bank robberies and ATMs that had occurred from April 2018 to date and what had caused such incidents to escalate.

Mr Lesedi also wanted to know how much in cash had been stolen in all the incidents as well as why the police and law enforcement agencies were unable to control and curb such heists and the groups and individuals behind them.

Furthermore, he asked if the ministry would not consider deploying retired police and BDF to assist law enforcement agencies or arming security companies to control increasing heists and ATM blasts.

The MP also asked the interventions the ministry had put in place to fight heists and nip their escalation in the bud. ENDS