President orders forensic audit of past spending

As the Botswana Government prepares to spend P62m ($4 467) to conduct a forensic audit on past public spending, President Duma Boko says there is no need to appoint a Presidential Commission of Inquiry to carry out the task because he does not want the whole exercise to be about him, reports Mmegi Online. Boko, who was responding to the Budget speech in Parliament, said he differed with the Botswana Congress Party's suggestion that the President should appoint a commission to carry out the task. Boko indicated that he wanted the forensic audit to be conducted by an independent reputable international firm. Boko said unlike in the past, where millions were spent to audit a single government department, this time it would be different because the audit would deal with the entirety of government. Boko said the firm the government has approached has met them halfway given the government’s current poor financial status. ‘They have indicated that they will not go above P65m ($4 467) and that they will audit 30 state-owned enterprises,’ he disclosed. Boko gave an example of how Angola recovered $30bn after conducting a forensic audit. 'We are not doing this to shine. Where money has been stolen we will find out. In this audit, there is what we call assets tracing where we are going to follow the trail of where money went.’

Full Mmegionline report