Bakang Seretse Spills The Beans
Maureen Odubeng | Monday December 11, 2017 19:00
Breaking his silence, Seretse penned an explosive three-page letter exclusive to The Monitor implicating a number of senior government officials all the way to the President.
The letter, which he attempts “to put the allegations in their perspective,” reads like it is from a man with nothing to lose.
He narrates his incarceration and confidential details surrounding the Directorate of Intelligence and Security (DIS) transactions that are being investigated by the Directorate on Corruption and Economic Crime (DCEC) and Financial Intelligence Authority (FIA).
Although the letter starts saying that the allegations were peddled by his adversaries who “seek to destroy my business and soil my career and reputation,” later Seretse makes explosive revelations saying he is caught between the raging war between DIS and DCEC.
Seretse claims that in the whole saga, he is a scapegoat and just a small fish bait designed to nab President Ian Khama and DIS director Isaac Kgosi.
“The whole saga was staged-managed to humiliate us to implicate Mr Kgosi [DIS director] and the President in some wrong doing,” Seretse’s letter to The Monitor reads in part.
Seretse claims that while he was held at the notorious Gaborone Maximum Prison that houses some of the worst prisoners in Botswana, he says he was particularly asked to implicate Khama and Kgosi.
“I was constantly being asked during that time to implicate Mr Kgosi and the Minister in some wrong-doing,” Seretse claims.
He adds that, “The DCEC and FIA believed that the payments to Israel were contrived scheme by the President and Mr Kgosi to steal from treasury”.
He said the DCEC officer, [name withheld] “expressed the view that the president and Mr Isaac Kgosi had a corrupt relationship and that they would finally be able to detain and incarcerate Mr Kgosi without HE’s protection as he was soon vacating office”.
Seretse also threw in Minister of Minerals and Green Technology Sadique Kebonang into the fray saying the DCEC intention is to “frustrate his political ambitions”.
Minster Kebonang
Interestingly, The Monitor has intercepted a “highly classified” letter dated November 28, 2017 from Minister of Mineral Resources, Green Technology and Energy Security Sadique Kebonang to the Minister of Presidential Affairs Eric Molale concerning the transactions under the investigations by the DCEC.
In the letter written five days before Seretse was arrested, Kebonang sounds clueless as to the status of the DIS funds from the National Petroleum Fund (NPF) managed by Khulaco Pty Ltd.
Kebonang was however aware that there is an ongoing investigation on the funds. He also acknowledged that Seretse “has put at risk his own businesses, should the information of his relationship with DIS come out”.
Kebonang writes, “It has come to our attention that some sort of investigation is being carried out by the DCEC on this transaction.
We have no problem with the investigations but are however concerned that if these investigations are not handled properly, national security and the secrecy around the transaction would be compromised”.
Both DCEC and DIS fall under Molale’s ministry, and Kebonang called on the latter to sort out tensions at the two organisations.
“Given that these matters relate to two organisations in your ministry, it is important that unnecessary tensions between the two organisations, on what we consider a straightforward request, be minimised,” Kebonang wrote.