Amid accusations and counter accusations, the University of Botswana student community was left in confusion and frustration as the UB Student Representative Council Vice President, Nico Selobilwe, and the Minister of Entertainment and Culture, Keitshokile Morati, were on Monday suspended for allegedly embezzling P13 000.
A day after that, the SRC president, MacDonald Rakgare, was expelled by his VP for allegedly misappropriating P80 000 of student funds for personal use.
This chain of expulsions and suspensions follows the disappearance of over P80 000 of money accrued during the recently successful fresher’s ball held at UB.
MacDonald Rakgare, popularly known as “Chilly Boy”, said he and his council had found it fit to suspend the Vice President and the Minister of Entertainment and Culture after the two received cash amounting to P20 000 from the Director of Brave Music Promotions.
Rakgare said this came after a thorough questioning of the two who had sworn that they had only received P7000 from Brazil which they handed to the SRC Treasurer.
In Rakgare’s words, after further pressing and confirmation by Brazil that indeed he gave the SRC VP and Minister of Entertainment P20 000, the two alleged culprits confessed to receiving P20 000 from Brazil but again vowed that they would not account for the other missing P13 000 until the missing money for the tickets and T-Shirts was accounted for.
Rakgare said that after the confessions, the two boasted of currently building their own houses with the embezzled funds and it was at this time that the Executive Committee decided to suspend them indefinitely, pending further investigations.
After the two received letters of suspension and the students’ community alerted, Rakgare said the two then stole the SRC stamp and wrote a memorandum to the student community informing them of his suspension.
Contacted for comment, Selobilwe maintained that he was innocent of the malicious charges and that rather Rakgare is the one who knows where the missing funds are as he has even confessed to embezzling the funds.
Rakgare, on his part, labeled the charges as pure witch hunting, pointing a finger at the two suspended SRC members as the real fraudsters. He said his powers as the president allows him, together with his Executive Committee, to take disciplinary action against any SRC member. He said up until now the VP and entertainment minister have refused to vacate the SRC premises as ordered and they have not returned the stamp they stole. But he was quick to note that he has since approached the UB Security to help them with evicting the two from the SRC premises as well as to get the stamp back.
Some observers say the whole backstabbing and feuding emanates from the outer political field of Gaborone Central politics, where the UB SRC, who are BNF loyalists, are in full support of the BNF parliamentary candidate, Kagiso Thutlwe, while Macdonald Rakgare is either neutral or does not want to play the outer political ball.
It is also rumoured that Dumelang Saleshando is having a chase for his seat as he had earlier on in his campaigns stated that the party which emerges victorious for the UB SRC will determine which party wins the Gaborone Central seat, something that has led to Saleshando having a fragile relationship with the UB SRC.
Later Selobilwe said Saleshando cared less for the UB community as he did not even contribute P10 during their legal battle with the Ministry of Education over the winter vacation legal scuffle, which UB SRC won.
