Africa-Press – Botswana. Directorate of Public Prosecutions (DPP) has reportedly made major strides in the take-over of delegated prosecutorial functions from the Botswana Police Service (BPS).
The takeover project, commenced in April 2020 with the aim to have accomplished full takeover by March 2025, after DPP revised the Take-over Strategy to enable gradual takeover of prosecution from the BPS, without overwhelming and over-stretching the resources at its disposal.
“Basically we are taking what is ours from the police, we delegated those powers to them because we felt we did not have sufficient capacity to deal with the number of cases registered on a daily basis,” DPP Director, Ms Nomsa Moatswi told a meeting on the takeover of prosecutorial duties from the BPS in Selebi Phikwe on Wednesday.
She said the project needed a lot of resources, starting with manpower, as the DPP only had 218 prosecutors, which was way too low to be able to efficiently prosecute the cases.
“We are hopeful that the government will give us the necessary support,” she said.
Ms Moatswi said they tried to recruit some of the police officers seconded to DPP, but the process failed because ‘our package was not as attractive as what they were getting’.She urged the prosecutors to reflect on the issue of reducing the backlog of cases, as well as think hard about intensifying supervision, saying it would address backlog and stakeholders’ concerns.
“You also need to think hard about the DPP’s image because some people have lost confidence in the DPP,” she added.
She emphasised team work to ensure swift delivery of justice to the public.
Ms Moatswi urged supervisors to conduct audits from time to time, especially of officers who seemed to have excessive work load.
She also called for timely assessment of dockets so that where evidence was not sufficient, cases could be closed and sent back to law enforcement.
Giving an update, the official at the helm of the takeover project, Ms Khumoitsile Tirelo said from April 2020 to March 2023, DPP had managed to fully take over cases from 31 police stations with a total 5 794 files received.
She said of the 5 794 files received, only 1 810 cases, translating to 31 per cent, had been completed, whilst 3 975 were pending.“DPP is committed that by end of March 2025, there will be no Botswana Police Service officers appearing and or registering cases in court in all towns where the DPP had offices,” she said.
Ms Tirelo said the takeover project had challenges such as extensive travel as offices such as Gaborone, Francistown and Maun travelled to attend high court and magistrate court outside their regions. She also decried the unattractive retention strategy, which she said resulted in some staff members leaving the DPP for greener pastures.
Ms Tirelo said the takeover project came with excessive workload as DPP had 11 903 files done by 218 prosecutors, adding that on average each prosecutor had a workload of 55 files.
She said in regions such as Francistown and Selebi Phikwe, the ratio per prosecutor was as high as 85 and 84 respectively.
“This is above the recommended workload per prosecutor which is 1:50,” she said.
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