Government has allocated P3 million to relieve the police of delegated prosecution services. The funds are to be used to open more satellite offices for the Directorate of Public Prosecutions (DPP).

Presenting the budget to the Committee of Supply, Minister of Justice, Machana Shamukuni said the rollout of the project will continue in the financial year 2023/2024.

For the 2022-2023 financial year, Shamukuni revealed that the project was allocated P2.4 million to establish two satellite offices in Tsabong and Kasane. “These two satellite offices will be completed at the end of the financial year 2022-2023,” he said.

He explained that the DPP has revised the Takeover Strategy to enable a seamless and gradual takeover of prosecutorial duties from the Botswana Police Service (BPS) without overwhelming and over-stretching the thin resources at its disposal. “The Revised Takeover Strategy which was adopted for implementation in August 2022 entails relieving all the BPS stations of prosecutorial role in areas where DPP offices are located. Thus far, complete takeover has been achieved on a total of 22 Police Stations in Maun, Selebi-Phikwe, Palapye, Francistown and Kasane. Lobatse is scheduled for complete takeover of prosecutorial duties from the BPS by the end of May 2023. The Kasane DPP Satellite office has since been established and became operational effective 1st February 2023,” Shamukuni disclosed.

Shamukuni added that as reported previously, preparations are at an advanced stage to open a satellite office in Tsabong to curtail expenses as well as frequent long distance trips to the areas as it is currently serviced by the Lobatse DPP office. He said despite the delays occasioned by the protracted procurement process, it is expected that the office will be operational by this month.

“The DPP’s endeavour to expand and decentralise is often frustrated by the acute shortage of accommodation. However, not all is doom and gloom since the construction of the Maun DPP office is nearing completion. This project is expected to be completed and ready for occupation by May 2023,” the minister further said.

Shamukuni however disclosed that the implementation of the prosecution takeover project has inevitably increased the workload for the 211 prosecutors in the DPP establishment. “For effectiveness, it is the DPP’s desire to have a manageable and optimum ratio of cases or dockets per prosecutor,” he said.

On service delivery, Shamukuni said the DPP has consistently maintained an 80% success rate in matters completed at court. He said as at the end of January 2023, the success rate stood at 82.3% against a target of 90% whilst the average performance in respect of turnaround time for conclusion of cases at court stood at 17.5 months against a target of 18 months.

“DPP statistics show that the DPP has a total of 11, 903 files (i.e. cases and dockets) as at January 2023. This is a significant increase in the number of cases being handled by the DPP; having in mind that in November 2021 the DPP had just over 8, 471 files. Out of the total case load, 8, 382 are cases pending before various courts while 3,521 are dockets received from law enforcement agencies of which 1,325 are awaiting service of summons while the rest are being assessed for suitability of prosecution or otherwise,” Shamukuni said.