25 Aug 2026

The Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure experts have been tasked with providing a detailed technical report and recommendations on whether the Dibete Police Station can be salvaged or entirely scrapped.

The move comes as government leadership steps up to address the long-standing crisis at the facility to bring the much-needed motion to a station that had sat silent for years.

Government is gathering technical data to draft a path forward, with the aim to turn a costly administrative pain into a restored community asset.

On Monday, Minister for State President, Defence and Security, Mr Moeti Mohwasa and acting Minister of Transport and Infrastructure, Mr Letlhogonolo Barongwang toured the facility to evaluate the damage first-hand.

The goal was to collect clear and on-the-ground facts to brief Cabinet so that the leadership can decide the building’s future from an informed perspective.

“I am here to appreciate this police station because I have had many complaints about it and the one in Serule that they were poorly constructed,” Mr Mohwasa explained.

He noted that as the minister overseeing the Botswana Police Service, ensuring a functional and safe workplace for officers was top priority, particularly since the current site can no longer serve the public.

For his part, Mr Barongwang confirmed that engineering experts from his ministry were finalising the detailed technical evaluation to dictate the next steps.

“What we just witnessed here is a very painful reality,” Mr Barongwang said, emphasising that the situation called for urgent push for stronger project oversight.

“We have learned a crucial lesson that project management is vital in order to account for every single pula that has been spent,” he added.

Meanwhile, the root of the issue stretches back to 2017, when the P18 million facility, which opened in 2008, had to be hastily evacuated due to severe structural failure, continuous wall cracking and shifting floors.

Deputy permanent secretary for buildings, Ms Gorata Moleboge shed light on the technical breakdown, noting that the structure suffered from differential settlement early on, meaning that different parts of the foundation sank at uneven depths into unstable ground.

“Some fundamental construction requisites were not followed to the letter, particularly regarding the collapsible soil below ground level,” Ms Moleboge said.

As the building continued to give way, authorities made the safety call to evacuate officers before anyone was hurt.

While the story of Dibete’s police station had been a frustrating chapter, the involvement of top officials demonstrated government’s determination to clean up past mistakes, protect public funds and restore proper law enforcement infrastructure to the community. ENDS