Former Botswana leader Ian Khama has called on the country’s new president, Duma Boko, to launch an investigation into the ousted Mokgweetsi Masisi’s use of government finances during his period in power.
Speaking to the Sunday Times from his home country, which he had to flee when Masisi took the reins, Khama said he believed state funds were plundered under Masisi, and he urged Boko to look into this issue immediately.
“The first thing he’s got to do, really, is an audit of our finances, because these people really undermined our financial regulations, and we’re well known for our financial prudence in Botswana,” said Khama.
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“So he’s got to really work out how all the procedures — the policies put in place to have good governance in the country, something we were so proud of — have been undermined. And he’s got to work on putting those back and repairing the damage done by Masisi.”
Khama actively participated in campaigning against Masisi and the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) in a bid to reverse what he says was the grave error he made in picking Masisi as his successor five years ago.
“I addressed about 92 rallies and travelled several thousand kilometres, going around [the country] urging our citizens to help me fix the mistake I made in appointing him in the first place, because I was responsible for the suffering and pain they were going through,” he said.
“I apologised to them, as I have done on previous occasions, for the serious error of judgment on my part. I take the full blame for that, and the country is where it is because of that misjudgement of mine.
“I felt I couldn’t just walk away from having made a mistake like that. I had to be at the forefront of trying to fix things, and that’s why I threw myself into this campaign wholeheartedly to remove him [Masisi] and his regime.”
The campaign by the opposition, including Khama, led to the BDP losing power after 58 years of being at the helm. Boko, of the Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC), was sworn in as president this week.
Everybody around the country, if you were to ask them, feels as if it’s a second republic. It’s a second independence, and they are free once again
— Ian Khama, former Botswana leader
Khama said many in Botswana feel a sense of relief, as Masisi’s rule was akin to a dictatorship, in that he persecuted his opponents. He was one of those persecuted.
He described Botswana under Masisi and the country that existed after he was thrown out of office as like chalk and cheese. “Everybody around the country, if you were to ask them, feels as if it’s a second republic. It’s a second independence, and they are free once again,” he said.
“They say it’s freedom. They say, ‘Now we can talk. Now we can talk on our phones and go and meet people without worrying that the intelligence services are going to come and pick us up and detain us and question us unlawfully.’ That is what they were doing — just the same as they do in dictatorships.
“Everybody just felt relief — you could feel it in the nation. I mean, you had to be here. It was like this burden being lifted off everybody’s shoulders when he went.”
It is now up to Boko to maintain this freedom and bring the country back to financial stability, Khama said.
He added that though talks about him officially joining the UDC have not materialised, they all had a common adversary in Masisi and the BDP.
He said the close ties Masisi enjoyed with Zanu-PF and Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa should not have been surprising, as both men were cut from the same cloth.
“They are birds of a feather. I mean, they were attracted to each other, perhaps because they had similar governance tactics and strategies ... They knew each other from the past, and that’s why, before the election, President Mnangagwa said publicly that he supported the BDP, that he would support Masisi to win the election. And normally, you know, that’s not done in Sadc.”
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