Category: Sunday Standard

This past Wednesday, Botswana football was rocked by the news of the immediate departure of national team coach Morena Ramoreboli.

The South African gaffer dumped the Zebras to join the South African national team as an assistant to head coach Pitso Mosimane. His resignation comes at a critical point for the Zebras.

While a joint statement by the South African Football Association (SAFA) and the BFA says ‘the transition reflects the strong footballing relationship between the two neighbouring countries,’ the truth may be the polar opposite.

The BFA was not amenable to what is now regarded as an ‘amicable’ departure and was not keen to let the gaffer go. The association found itself blindsided as the coach only informed them ‘he was resigning.’ With no laws to force him to honour his contract, they had no option but to let him go.

His departure leaves the BFA with the short end of the stick. It is ‘a win’ for South Africa and ‘a loss for Botswana.’ A week from today, the Zebras will commence their qualification campaign for the Africa Cup of Nations. They face Lybia next week on the 24th September away, before returning home to face Tunisia four days later on the 28th September 2026.

By Friday, the Botswana Football Association (BFA) was in a race against time to find an interim coach for the national team, the Zebras. The interim coach was expected to be announced on the same day.

Coincidentally, the interim coach’s appointment came on a day when the association was announcing its final squad to play in the upcoming qualifiers. The team is expected to go into camp this week to start preparations.

Reached for comment, BFA interim General Secretary Bathusi Rathari conceded that the association was not keen to let Ramoreboli go. He however says there was little they could to retain him. Regarding the impact of his departure on the Zebras campaign, the BFA expects it to be minimal. Rathari says campaign plans were already in place and they will continue unaltered.

‘In as much as the head coach is gone, we still have Pontsho Moloi and Oarabile Seabo who worked with him as assistant coaches. They will be expected to work with the incoming coach.’

‘As for the incoming interim coach, we are appointing a coach who promises to qualify us for the Afcon finals. Whoever the coach is, we expect him to work with the same template plan we already have,’ the BFA General Secretary explains.

While Rathari is optimistic the team will do well, football commentator Kagiso Kgaogano says the road ahead ‘will be bumpy.’ He says any dreams of qualifying for the next Afcon may just be ‘pipe dreams.’

He is of the view that even with Ramoreboli at the helm, the Zebras’ chances of qualifying were still very minimal. He points out that the team’s preparations were not adequate. Kgaogano believes that through his resignation, the South African gaffer dodged a bullet.

‘I believe joining the South African national team came as more of a relief for Ramoreboli. The last time he took the team to the Afcon finals, he did not get enough preparations for the team. The result was humiliation at the Afcon finals.’

‘This year again, he did not have enough opportunity to prepare the team. The last time the team had any meaningful match was at the Afcon finals in 2025. Since then, the team has not played any game together.’

‘During the Zebras’ last friendly games, which were against Zimbabwe and Malawi in the Mukuru tournament, only fringe players were used. This denied the substantive national team of a good opportunity to play together and prepare for these games,’ Kgaogano explains.

He says the fact that an interim coach is appointed with less than two weeks before the commencement of Afcon qualifiers is not helping the situation. ‘It is going to be a rough ride for the coach and the team,’ he says.

Every September for more than a decade, something quietly remarkable has happened on the banks of Gaborone Dam. A stage goes up at the Bojanala Waterfront, international royalty of every genre flies in, and for one week Gaborone stops looking like a diamond capital and starts looking like a cultural one. Visitors cross the border from Zimbabwe and South Africa specifically for it. Air Botswana’s schedules fill up around it. Local designers, caterers, sound engineers, and craft vendors build entire micro-economies around it. And at the center of it, year after year, is one man who built the whole thing from nothing: Thapelo ‘Fish’ Pabalinga.

The instinct to sell Botswana to the world did not begin with a festival. Long before Gaborone International Music and Culture (GIMC), as it is known, existed, Pabalinga was an undergraduate business management student who had already been offered a route out: an elite golf scholarship abroad, the kind of individual opportunity most young people would take without a second thought. He turned it down. What he built instead, over the following years, was not a personal exit but a platform, one that now pulls audiences, artists, and sponsors across borders into Botswana, rather than sending Botswana’s brightest out of it one visa at a time. That choice, made quietly as a student long before anyone was watching, is the part of the story that turns a successful events business into something closer to a public asset.

Eleven-plus years later, GIMC has grown from a modest local show into what its organizers now describe, with some justification, as one of the continent’s premier cultural weeks. The stage has carried Jonathan Butler and Kirk Whalum together in one unforgettable set, brought American RandB star Musiq Soulchild to Gaborone, and welcomed Zimbabwe’s own Jah Prayzah, no small part of why Zimbabwean fans cross the border for this week every year. It once gave Botswana audiences a rare chance to see Nigeria’s late comedy giant, Mr. Ibu, perform live on home soil, a memory many who were there still speak of fondly. South African stars like Lira, Zonke, and Vusi Nova have graced the same stage, and the festival has spun off into sub-brands of its own: GIMC Jazz, GIMC Afro Tech, a champagne picnic, and a comedy night, each with a distinct audience and its own commercial logic. Corporate Botswana has taken notice: Absa Bank has backed the Jazz Festival with direct sponsorship. Pabalinga’s own account of his ambition is disarmingly simple: to ‘put Botswana Arts on the world map.’

There is a well-established body of thinking in international relations most associated with the political scientist Joseph Nyem that a country’s influence abroad rests on its output and its military or its minerals. It also rests on soft power: the pull of a nation’s culture and creative output and its capacity to make people elsewhere want to visit, invest in, or think well of it. Nation-branding scholars such as Simon Anholt have pushed the concept further, arguing that countries that deliberately cultivate a ‘competitive identity’ around what they are genuinely good at punch far above their economic weight internationally.

Botswana’s tourism messaging, while commendably consistent, still only conveys part of the narrative. Examine how the Botswana Tourism Organisation (BTO) showcases the country at trade shows where it already has a presence. At trade shows such as ‘ We Are Africa and WTM Africa in Cape Town, ITB Berlin’, and through its own representative offices in London, the Munich area, and New York, the pitch overwhelmingly focuses on the Okavango Delta, Chobe’s elephants, the Kalahari, and the Makgadikgadi Pans, which are marketed as ‘high-value, low-impact’ wilderness experiences aimed at a narrow band of luxury safari travellers. That is a genuine and valuable strength. But Botswana has more to offer than just wildlife, and it can attract other types of visitors. Selling a country is not only about selling its animals. It requires a mindset change, a willingness to sell Botswana’s people, its music, and its energy informally and warmly, without a delegation of suits standing behind a trade-fair banner.

This is not a hypothetical opportunity. It is a concrete, low-cost one, sitting in markets Botswana is already paying to be present in.

BTO already maintains representative offices in exactly the cities this argument points to: London, the Munich area of Germany, and New York. Every one of those markets already hosts the kind of large-scale, publicly accessible music platform that a GIMC-calibre production team could credibly step onto. London’s Wembley Park runs a free public summer program, Summer Rocks, every year without fail, including a strand called Sounds ‘ Of The World’, built specifically around Afrobeats and international genres, performed free to thousands of passers-by on Olympic Way. That is not an aspirational stretch; it is a stage that already exists, already free to the public, and already looking for exactly the kind of international sound Botswana’s music scene can supply.

From there the ambition can climb as high as the country wants it to: London’s O2 Arena, New York’s Times Square, the Sydney Opera House The Forecourt in Australia is a venue specifically designed for open-air, world-facing cultural moments, similar to Japan’s Fuji Rock Festival and China’s rapidly expanding calendar of Africa-focused trade and cultural expos. None of these require Botswana to build anything. They require Botswana to show up; at events it is often already attending for other reasons, with something more than a wildlife brochure.

Southbank Centre, in London, UK, just across the river from Wembley, has run exactly this kind of platform for over a decade. Africa Utopia, the festival co-founded in 2012 by Senegalese star Baaba Maal, has since brought Fuse ODG, Femi Kuti, Ethiopian jazz pioneer Mulatu Astatke, and the Kinshasa Symphony Orchestra to the same riverside stages where a GIMC-calibre act could credibly join, alongside a standing program of African dance. It is not a closed shop. It is a returning invitation, and Botswana has yet to properly answer it.

Nelson Mandela once called Ladysmith Black Mambazo, then a choir from KwaZulu-Natal, ‘South Africa’s cultural ambassadors,’ a title that helped carry them to sold-out nights at London’s Queen Elizabeth Hall on the Southbank, decades after Paul Simon first put them in front of the world on Graceland. Botswana does not lack the equivalent voices. It lacks only the decision to call them what they already are.

None of this is an argument that Fish Pabalinga should be handed a title ahead of anyone else or that he has earned this more than Botswana’s other serious cultural operators. That would be the wrong lesson to take from GIMC’s success, and it would also be detrimental policy. A national cultural-diplomacy effort built around one person is not a strategy; it is a succession risk. The better reading is that Botswana already has, in Pabalinga and the team behind GIMC, a proven organizer who knows how to book international acts, negotiate with airlines, manage a stage under pressure, and deliver a paying international audience, and that this exact organizational capability is the missing piece between Botswana’s musicians and the world’s stages. A national delegation requires a leader with a proven track record who can collaborate with Botswana’s top artists, DJs, dance ensembles, and performers, whether the objective is to secure a free afternoon slot at Wembley Park or to organize a ticketed showcase at the O2.

Countries that take their creative economy seriously do not leave the process to chance. They identify their proven cultural operators and formally attach them to national branding efforts, because an organizer who has spent over a decade doing this work at his own commercial risk has already done, for free, the hard part of what a cultural attaché is supposed to do. Botswana’s new administration has spoken consistently about economic diversification beyond diamonds, and the creative and cultural industries sit near the top of every serious list of where that diversification should come from.

None of this requires inventing something new. It requires recognizing the potential of Botswana’s existing music and culture sector and building a pipeline through BTO’s established international presence, connecting what this sector has already proven it can achieve at home with the stages abroad that are ready to host them, many of which are available for free.

That is not a favor to any one individual. This approach is simply beneficial policy: support what is already working, take the entire delegation with you, and stop asking the government to reinvent, at public expense, what private efforts have already achieved for free.

Botswana is stepping up its drive to attract Korean capital, technology and industrial partnerships as it seeks to reduce its dependence on diamonds and build a more diversified economy.

Vice-President and Finance Minister Ndaba Gaolathe used the 8th Korea-Africa Economic Cooperation (KOAFEC) Ministerial Conference in Seoul to urge Korean companies to test Botswana’s investment proposition, highlighting opportunities in energy, manufacturing, agriculture, strategic minerals, artificial intelligence and financial services.

The pitch comes as Botswana targets US$37 billion in cumulative investment by 2036, with government seeking to develop a more diversified, export-oriented and technology-driven economy.

The shift is being driven in part by structural changes in the diamond market. The rapid growth of laboratory-grown diamonds and changing consumer preferences are increasingly challenging the long-term outlook for natural diamonds, adding urgency to Botswana’s diversification plans.

Korean investment is being targeted not simply for capital, but for its potential to bring technology, skills and manufacturing capacity into Botswana. Government wants foreign investors to help establish local value chains and connect domestic companies to international markets.

Strategic minerals offer another potential area of cooperation. Korea’s demand for minerals used in electric vehicles, batteries and AI infrastructure could create opportunities for Botswana to move beyond exporting raw materials towards processing and manufacturing.

Agriculture, meanwhile, is being positioned as a commercial investment opportunity, with opportunities identified in technology, irrigation, food processing and value addition. Energy and digital infrastructure are also central to the government’s transformation agenda.

The challenge now is converting the investment pitch into bankable projects that deliver jobs, skills transfer, citizen participation and exports.

With US$37 billion on the table by 2036, Gaolathe’s Seoul message marks a deliberate attempt to reposition Botswana as an investment destination whose proposition extends beyond diamonds to minerals, agriculture, energy, manufacturing and the digital economy.

Fresh information suggests that the Directorate on Corruption and Economic Crime (DCEC) case against former minister Noah Salakae, Tau Grading (Pty) Ltd, its directors and lawyer may be deeply personal as key players with a tangled history collide in court.

It has emerged that the lead investigator in the corruption case acted as a lawyer for the accused persons before joining the DCEC to investigate them.

The revelation is just one strand in an increasingly tangled web of lawyers, politicians, vehicles and alleged favors.

At the heart of the storm is Thabo Malambane, DCEC deputy Director General and attorney.

Malambane is part of the team that investigated corruption allegations against Salakae, Tau Grading founder Rudy Lemcke, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Hugo Lemcke, Chief Accountant Seby Jose, Permanent Secretary Ken Ketshajwang and lawyer Mompati Sepego.

The state alleges that Tau Grading bribed Salakae with P1.6 million, a Toyota Fortuner, as well as bush clearing services for the award of the P1.5billion Ghanzi-New Xade road construction project.

Before joining DCEC, Malambane allegedly acted as a lawyer for Salakae and Tau Grading.

Malambane was part of the team that investigated allegations that Tau Grading bribed Salakae with a Toyota Fortuner. The allegations followed revelations that Salakae had been using a Fortuner purchased by Tau Grading.

Sunday Standard investigations have uncovered another intriguing vehicle link, suggesting that Malambane also benefited from a similar favour by Tau Grading.

A few weeks before joining the DCEC, Malambane drove around in a Toyota Hilux double cab bearing registration B111BPD.

A Sunday Standard ownership search with the Department of Road Transport and Safety (DRTS) revealed that the car is registered under Maun Quarries.

A further CIPA search revealed that Maun Quarries shareholders are Christian Rudolf Lemcke and Hugo Johannes Lemcke.

The cross directorship between Maun Quaries and Tau Grading suggests that the two are sister companies.

In another curious development, it emerged that around the time Tau Grading allegedly allowed Salakae to use its Toyota Fortuner in the run up to the 2024 parliamentary elections, the company also provided his political opponent, BDP candidate John Thite with a Toyota Hi-lux twin cab.

Both men were competing for the same parliamentary seat. Both benefited from vehicles provided by Tau Grading. Among those who backed Salakae’s candidacy was Malambane.

Whatever happened between Salakae, Tau Grading and Malambane is now the subject of fierce speculation. But one thing is beyond doubt, the relationship has turned bitter. In Parliament last week, Salakae launched a blistering attack on what he called ‘ a notorious senior officer’ at DCEC. He accused the officer of sponsoring corruption allegations against him. Then came another broadside. At a kgotla meeting in Ghanzi, Salakae made reference to ‘ the young officer from DCEC’ and vowed to take him on in court,

The extraordinary public confrontation has transformed what might otherwise have been a straightforward corruption investigation into a much wider controversy.

On Friday, the controversy branched off into a political scene as the Broadhurst Magistrates Court was packed to the rafters by two busloads of Salakae’s political supporters.

Hundreds of supporters who drove the more than 600km overnight from Ghanzi arrived in court Friday morning wearing T-shirts emblazoned with Salakae’S face on the front and ‘ eseng mogo Salaka’ (Don’t touch Salakae) written across the back. The dramatic show of support suggested the corruption case hsas already become deeply political.

All the key players in what promises to be a brutal marathon trial share a deeply entangled history.

THE 2013 MURDER CASE

In February 2013, while he was still Principal Magistrate in Ghanzi, Malambane sparked a national outcry when he granted unconditional bail to two murder suspects-Tshiamo Kalalelo and Mmika Mpe-less than 14 days after they were arrested for the gruesome murder, robbery and rape of their employer, Johanna Reinette Vorster.

Hours after Malambane granted them bail, the two accused were re-arrested in a separate stock theft case.

In protest, Malambane demanded answers why the matter was secretly moved from his docket in Ghanzi to a court in Gaborone without his consent. Viewing this as administrative overreach and an assault on his judicial independence, Malambane boycotted all cases before his court until he received an explanation.

He was subsequently summarily dismissed from the bench for gross misconduct and insubordination after he refused an order from the Acting Chief Justice to resume his judicial duties. He unsuccessfully challenged his dismissal at the Court of Appeal (CoA) in 2021.

Incidentally, attorney Charles Tlagae, who is part of the current Tau Grading defence team, was the family lawyer for the slain Reinett Vorster and her husband Leon Vorster at the time.

THE TAU GRADING CONNECTION

After his dismissal from the judiciary, Malambane stayed in Ghanzi and continued to practice as a private lawyer. Sunday Standard is informed that Tau Grading was one of his major clients over the years. Tau Grading employees have indicated that Malambane has represented the company as a lawyer.

SALAKAE and TAU GRADING

The relationship between Salakae and Tau Grading dates back to 2013, when current General Manager John Motsumi introduced him to Head of Finance Jose Seby.

Motsumi would then become Salakae’s Campaign Manager in the 2014 general elections, which he successfully contested against then Member of Parliament (MP) Johnny Swartz.

Salake lost to John Thiite by only 176 votes in 2019. At the time, both candidates maintained a close relationship with Tau Grading and continued to enjoy its support.

In October 2024, just two weeks before the general elections, Tau Grading borrowed Salakae a Toyota Fortuner for use during his elections campaign. The same courtesy was extended to his opponent, John Thiite, who was also lent a Toyota Hilux Double.

However, sources have indicated that Salakae returned the Fortuner to Tau Grading in September 2025.

THE BNF WINDFALL

Salakae’s prosecution is widely viewed as a continuation of the factional fights within the ruling Botswana National Front (BNF). The Ghanzi North MP is regarded as a fierce critic of some close allies of President Duma Boko. Reference is routinely made to Salakae’s explosive letter announcing his resignation from the BNF Central Committee, in which he alleged that the party was run by Boko’s bodyguards. Meanwhile, Salakae’s loyalists shot salvos at the BNF leadership during the Monday kgotla meeting. Councillor Soso Saidoo has been summoned for a disciplinary hearing after he publicly declared that the charges against Salakae were fueled by internal party politics and described BNF Vice President Moeti Mohwasa as ‘evil.’

Sunday Standard is informed that the BNF is also a beneficiary of Tau Grading’s benevolence. Party insiders have revealed that Tau Grading paid for over 20 buses to transport activists to the party national congress in Palapye and further paid for transport (10 buses) and food (P100,000) at the BNF national conference in Jwaneng. However, Tau Grading General Manager John Motsumi has denied any knowledge of such funding.

‘I am not aware of any funding of that nature from Tau Grading to BNF,’ he said in response to questions from Sunday Standard.

In politics, yesterday’s executioner can become tomorrow’s accused. That is what makes the possible addition of former minister and Permanent Secretary to the President Eric Molale to the Noah Salakae corruption case so politically intriguing.

On the surface, it is another corruption prosecution involving a multibillion-pula government tender. Beneath that, however, lies a story stretching back more than a decade, a story involving a dismissal letter, a defiant magistrate and the long memory of Botswana’s public institutions.

Today, Salakae and several co-accused stand before the courts over allegations linked to the P1.5 billion Ghanzi-New Xade road project. Prosecutors allege that Tau Grading and its officials offered Salakae a P1.6 million cash bribe, a Toyota Fortuner and bush-clearing services in exchange for influence over the award of the contract. The allegations remain untested in court and all accused persons are presumed innocent.

The case has already become politically charged. Salakae has publicly accused a senior DCEC official of pursuing him for personal reasons and later directed his criticism at Deputy Director Thabo Malambane, a former magistrate who rose through private legal practice to become one of the most senior anti-corruption investigators.

Yet if Molale is ultimately added to the charge sheet, the spotlight may shift from Salakae’s allegations to a far older chapter.

For it was Molale who signed the letter that ended Malambane’s judicial career. The story begins in Ghanzi in 2013. Then Principal Magistrate Thabo Malambane found himself at the centre of national controversy after granting unconditional bail to two men accused of the murder of Ghanzi farmer Reinett Vorster. The decision provoked outrage. Matters escalated when the suspects were subsequently re-arrested on separate charges and a related case was transferred from Ghanzi to Gaborone without Malambane’s approval. Viewing the move as interference with judicial independence, he boycotted court proceedings and demanded answers from his superiors.

The standoff ended badly. The Acting Chief Justice ordered him to return to work. Malambane refused. The dispute quickly evolved from a disagreement over judicial independence into a confrontation over authority itself. Government concluded that Malambane’s conduct amounted to insubordination.

On April 2, 2014, President Ian Khama decided to dismiss him. The man tasked with delivering the decision was Erik Molale. In a letter signed in his capacity as Permanent Secretary to the President, Molale informed Malambane that Khama had considered his explanations and determined that his refusal to obey a lawful order constituted gross misconduct justifying summary dismissal. The letter ended Malambane’s career on the bench with immediate effect.

At the time, few would have imagined that the paths of the two men would cross again in such dramatic fashion. Malambane remained in Ghanzi after his dismissal and established himself as a private attorney. Years later he would re-emerge in public service, joining the Directorate on Corruption and Economic Crime and eventually rising to become deputy director.

Molale, meanwhile, went on to become a cabinet minister before retiring from public service.

Now fate appears to have brought them back into the same story. The corruption investigation that has engulfed Salakae and Tau Grading originated within the DCEC before being handed to the Directorate of Public Prosecutions. The prosecution recently informed the court that another suspect is expected to be added to the case. Sources indicate that person is likely to be Molale.

Whether Molale is eventually charged, and whether any charge can be sustained, remains a matter for the prosecution and ultimately the courts. The evidence, not history, will determine guilt or innocence. Salakae’s supporters have sought to portray the case as a product of personal vendettas. So far, they have offered no evidence linking the charges to the alleged personal differences between Malambane and the accused persons.

Yet the symbolism surrounding Molale and Malambane is impossible to ignore. Twelve summers ago, one man signed a letter ending the other’s career. Today, the man who received that letter occupies a senior position in the institution whose investigation may help place the retired former Permanent Secretary and cabinet minister before a criminal court. Is Malambane finally having his revenge?

Botswana’s business community expects the economy to recover modestly this year, but the outlook remains clouded by weak demand, constrained government spending and high financing costs.

The Bank of Botswana’s June Business Expectations Survey shows firms expect national output to expand by 2.1 percent in 2026, following a 0.7 percent contraction in 2025. Growth of 1.3 percent is expected in the second quarter and 1.8 percent in the third quarter.

Despite the expected recovery, businesses remain cautious about near-term conditions. Firms in construction and real estate, finance, retail, accommodation, transport and communication, and manufacturing were pessimistic about the second quarter.

The concerns extend into the third quarter, with pessimism reported among retail, accommodation, transport and communication, construction and real estate, and agriculture firms. Mining and quarrying businesses were neutral.

The survey points to Botswana’s weak fiscal position as an important drag on activity. Lower government revenue, partly linked to weaker diamond export earnings, has constrained cash flows and limited government spending. Businesses also cited the exchange rate as a concern because of the economy’s heavy reliance on imported inputs.

Cost of finance was identified as the biggest factor hurting business operations during the second quarter. High borrowing costs, collateral requirements and cautious bank lending were cited as constraints. Some firms are responding by relying more heavily on retained earnings: their share rose to 53 percent from 50 percent in the previous quarter, while preference for loans fell from 43 percent to 28 percent.

The outlook improves further ahead. Firms are optimistic about conditions over the 12 months to June 2027, particularly in manufacturing, construction and real estate, retail and related services.

Export-oriented firms are already more positive, suggesting the weaker pula may be improving their competitiveness. Overall, the survey presents a recovery that remains tentative.

Botswana’s wheat production is falling further behind the needs of the country’s milling industry, leaving millers increasingly dependent on imports to keep factories supplied.

Bokomo chief executive Werner de Beer said wheat production had declined by 10 percent, with local output unable to make a meaningful dent in demand.

The scale of the gap is stark. De Beer said Botswana’s annual wheat harvest was estimated at about 6,500 tonnes, against monthly industry milling requirements of roughly 14,000 tonnes.

Maize faces a similar imbalance. Botswana produced about 1,500 tonnes last year, while millers collectively process around 16,000 tonnes a month, he said.

Local maize and wheat production therefore accounts for only about 10% of the market, according to de Beer, leaving the industry reliant on imports.

Millers source most maize from South Africa, while wheat supplies come from countries including Brazil, Lithuania, Germany and Mexico. De Beer said tariffs in South Africa and supply disruptions linked to the war in Eastern Europe had made diversification necessary.

‘The only bright spot in the local grains sector is sorghum,’ he said, adding that domestic production was sufficient to meet demand.

The dependence on imported grain leaves Botswana exposed to international prices, freight costs and geopolitical disruptions, with changes in any of these factors potentially feeding through to food prices.

Millers are nevertheless trying to make local grain more competitive. Under an agreement involving farmers, millers, input suppliers and government, locally produced grain is bought at the regional SAFEX price plus an 8% premium. Millers also subsidise half the transport costs for farmers in remote production areas such as Pandamatenga and the Tuli Block.

Standard Chartered Bank Botswana expects its pre-tax profit for the six months to June 2026 to rise by between 16 percent and 26 percent, according to a cautionary announcement issued to the Botswana Stock Exchange.

The bank expects unaudited consolidated profit before tax to increase by between P22 million and P36 million from the P140 million reported for the corresponding period in 2025. This puts the expected half-year profit before tax in a range of approximately P162 million to P176 million.

The announcement does not give reasons for the expected improvement, leaving details on the bank’s underlying performance to its full half-year results.

Standard Chartered Botswana said the results for the period ended June 30 will be published before the end of September, when shareholders and investors will receive a fuller picture of the bank’s performance.

The cautionary notice was issued in line with Botswana Stock Exchange listing requirements, which require companies to alert the market when there is reasonable certainty that expected profit or loss before tax will differ by at least 10 percent from the previous corresponding period.

The bank stressed that the figures contained in the announcement are unaudited and that the final results may differ from the current estimates. Investors have consequently been advised to exercise caution when trading in the company’s securities until the full results are released.

For now, the bank’s guidance points to another period of profit growth, but provides little indication of whether the improvement came from stronger lending, investment income, lower costs or other parts of the business. Those details will only become clear when the full results are published.

Financially hamstrung Botswana Fencing Federation (BFF) remains determined to expand its international footprint and build a stronger pathway for local fencers. The BFF missed both the recent Commonwealth Games and the Junior World Championships due to an acute lack of funds. Despite these challenges, the federation continues to find ways to give some of its athletes some international exposure.

This year, two senior fencers, Koketso Masena and Aobakwe Modise, were sent to the World Senior Championships in Hong Kong. Two others, Katlego Poonyane and Modise, represented Botswana at the African Championships in June.

BFF Public Relations Officer, Thabile Pilane says the federation was encouraged by the exposure gained. This is despite being unable to send full teams which include coaches to the events. While acknowledging that sending individual athletes instead of teams was not ideal, she says the federation was determined to improve its representation at future competitions.

‘It is not completely bad because we managed to have some exposure internationally, although we sent one person instead of a team. In future we would like to try and send a number of players.’

Despite the financial challenges, the federation continues to organise local competition to keep its athletes active and competition ready. ‘We managed also to have a tournament around March. That is how we keep our players active, so that they are always ready to compete. At any point in time, we can pick from the rankings for these international games when we get the proper funds and the support that we need,’ Pilane says.

With no sponsors on board, the federation currently relies largely on parents and individuals willing to provide financial assistance. ‘We have willing individuals and parents, but it is not stable to run a federation like that.’

‘Our federation is in dire need of sponsors to enable it to grow and gain the recognition it deserves and be part of the strong codes for Team Botswana,’ the BFF PRO emphasises.

Pilane says that while the federation’s mother bodies have supported them, assistance often comes at the last minute, making long-term planning difficult. The federation has since intensified efforts to secure partnerships and sponsorships. Among those recently approached is the Embassy of China in Botswana.

‘We approached the Embassy of China to Botswana because there is another tournament in Hong Kong coming up. We want to take the junior team that didn’t manage to go to the Commonwealth, so that they get that experience and exposure,’ she explains.

In the interim, the BFF is also preparing to host an international local tournament on 19 September 2026 in Gaborone. Athletes from other countries are expected to participate. The competition will cater for junior, senior and cadet categories.

While funding setbacks continue, the federation’s message is one of perseverance: keeping athletes active, seeking partnerships and creating opportunities so that Botswana fencing can eventually compete internationally with full teams and the support structure it deserves.

As the BFF moves towards its elective Annual General Meeting, Pilane says the current committee is still committed to advance the interest of the federation. She says as the committee, they acknowledge that there are still shortcomings, particularly in its efforts to move Botswana up from its current tier to the top tier. Despite these, they remain committed to building on the progress made through a number of initiatives planned for the future.

Bakang Seretse and his companies, Khulaco Proprietary Limited and MandB Properties, have applied to have Court of Appeal President Tebogo Tau and Justice Isaac Lesetedi recuse themselves from a pending appeal over interest earned on restrained funds. They argue that the two judges have already expressed views that create a reasonable apprehension of bias.

The application arises from a dispute over who is entitled to interest generated from millions of pula that were frozen under the Proceeds and Instruments of Crime Act before being released following the collapse of the state’s forfeiture case against Seretse and his companies.

At the centre of the matter is an Appeal in which the Attorney General is challenging a High Court judgment by Justice Zein Kebonang that awarded Seretse, Khulaco and MandB Properties interest accrued on restrained funds.

Seretse argues that Tau and Lesetedi should not sit on the appeal because they recently formed part of a three-judge panel that delivered judgment in a separate but related case involving the same P42 million payment made to Khulaco under a contract linked to the National Petroleum Fund.

According to the application, the July 31 judgment, authored by Justice Edwin Cameron and concurred in by Tau and Lesetedi, contained findings that characterised the transaction and Seretse’s conduct in strongly negative terms. Seretse points to passages in which the court referred to ‘sticky fingers’, suggested that ‘a monstrous heist was in the making’, and stated that a ‘whiff of fraud’ lingered around the transaction.

He argues that those findings went beyond procedural issues and amounted to judicial conclusions about his honesty and the legitimacy of the underlying transaction.

Seretse contends that the remarks are difficult to reconcile with an earlier Court of Appeal judgment delivered in 2022, which dismissed the state’s forfeiture appeal and accepted that the P42 million payment had a contractual basis.

‘The cumulative effect of those findings was to judicially characterise me as having participated dishonestly in a transaction involving the appropriation of Government monies,’ Seretse states in his affidavit. He argues that because the present appeal concerns funds connected to the same underlying transaction, a reasonable and informed observer could conclude that Tau and Lesetedi have already formed views on issues that may arise in the matter. The Attorney General opposes the application.

The Attorney General argues that the recusal bid is not based on dissatisfaction with an unfavourable judgment but on concerns about the appearance of impartiality.

Seretse and Co maintain that the test is not whether the judges are actually biased, but whether there is a reasonable apprehension that they may not approach the pending appeal with an open mind.

The dispute stems from lengthy litigation over funds linked to the National Petroleum Fund. The Directorate of Public Prosecutions previously sought forfeiture of assets connected to Seretse and his companies, but both the High Court and the Court of Appeal dismissed those efforts. After the restrained funds were released, a fresh dispute emerged over interest that accrued while the money was held in interest-bearing accounts.

In the recusal application, Seretse asks that Tau and Lesetedi step aside and that the matter be reassigned to a differently constituted Court of Appeal panel.