20 Mar 2025

The Office of the Receiver is grappling with challenges of storage and the high cost of maintenance of properties under its receivership due to prolonged litigation, which impedes disposal of most of the property.

Assistant Minister of Justice and Correctional Services, Mr Augustine Nyatanga revealed this to Parliament on yesterday when presenting the budget proposal for the Office of the Receiver. He said the office had seen substantial increase in responsibilities as evidenced by a rise in court orders for the seizure and return of various types of property.

Mr Nyatanga said during the current financial year, the number of court orders increased from 55 to 66, evidencing the criminal justice system’s efforts to deprive criminals of the proceeds and instruments of their criminal activities.

He said as at January 2025, the office was holding diverse property such as real estate, vehicles and plant machinery, livestock among others with a total value of P179 911 452. Mr Nyatanga said the value of such property represented noticeable increase of 9.4 per cent from the previous year’s value of P164 485 661.

On infrastructure development, Mr Nyatanga said warehouse development in Gaborone was at final design stage. He said the development of Francistown warehouse was carried out in-house through design and build and was at technical evaluation stage, while the Lobatse warehouse development tender documents were at vetting stage. The assistant minister said the three projects would cost P52 870 531.

Mr Nyatanga said resourcing of the Office of the Receiver included having appropriate storage facilities for assets under receivership and having appropriate personnel to manage assets. He said the office has submitted manpower budget for 12 posts for the 2024/2025 financial year, which was not approved.

Francistown East MP, Mr Tiroeaone Ntsima appealed for speeding up finalisation of cases relating to the property in the receiver’s possession. Mr Ntsima said there must be standard operating procedures for disposing the property and where possible, the seized property such as houses must be rented out and generate income.

He said the office must be fully equipped with the requisite personnel such as valuers, forensic auditors, accountants and lawyers and function accordingly. Mr Ntsima added that the use of technology was important for efficiency purposes and appealed to the office to engage the community to understand their mandate.

He said in cases where suspected goods were in other countries, therefore in need to be repatriated, the office must have multilateral and bilateral agreements for such goods to be repatriated in good shape and with ease.

MP Reuben Kaizer of Selebi Phikwe West said complexity of the legal framework in terms of litigating cases was putting the receiver at a disadvantage, as evidence was likely to disappear or get destroyed due to delay in finalising cases.

Therefore, he said the digital asset management system would assist in managing evidence and disposing cases. Mr Kaizer said dispute resolution procedures and processes must be in place to assist in timely dispensing cases.

Nata/ Gweta MP, Mr Lawrence Ookeditse said it was important to ensure that alleged criminals do not gain wealth from the proceeds of crime. Therefore, he said profits generated from goods that were proceeds of crime must equally be returned to government.

Parliament approved the sum of P17 947 980 under recurrent budget and the sum of P52 870 531 under development budget to stand as part of the estimates for the financial year 2025/2026. ENDS