Thursday, November 7, 2024

BIUST managers in assassination plot to silence whistle-blower

Police in Palapye are investigating a case in which some senior managers at Botswana International University of Science and Technology (BIUST) are implicated in a plot to assassinate an internal “whistleblower.”

The alleged assassination plot comes after the whistle-blower threatened to spill the beans on how some BIUST senior personnel manipulated the system to defraud the institution of huge amounts of money.

 Information passed to the Sunday Standard suggests that the high learning institution has secretly hired private detectives to spy on employees believed to have crucial information linked to how some senior officials had allegedly swindled the institution out of millions of Pula.

It is understood that the hired private detectives has already been provided with a list of potential whistleblowers who are alleged to have leaked information to the Directorate on Corruption and Economic Crime (DCEC), Directorate of Intelligence and Security Services (DISS)  as the Botswana Police Service.

On the 17th of last month two suspected hired private detectives barged into one of the whistleblower’s office during working hours and threatened to eliminate her if she refused to provide them with information in her possession that implicates some senior personnel.

Following the confrontation between the suspected whistleblower and the hired investigators, the latter was fired from duty amid reports that other suspected whistleblowers are also expected to be dismissed.  

The Station Commander of Palapye Superintendent Waboraro Ramaja confirmed that his station is investigating a case of threat to kill that involves a BIUST employee.

“It is true that my office is investigating such a case,” he said.

He said the investigations were still ongoing and thus far they have not yet arrested anyone in connection with the case but there are two suspects  linked to the case.

  “The two suspects have not yet been approached but the police know their whereabouts, once the investigators have gathered enough evidence, then they will be called in for questioning,” said Ramaja.

He further said they have not yet established whether other BIUST senior managers could be implicated in the alleged plot.

Sources close to the case revealed to Sunday Standard that the source told investigating officers that

Sometime last month she received a call from a stranger who requested to see her “as a matter of urgency. She wondered who this person could be and how he got her phone number.”

“She did agree to meet with him as she was curious to know what he wanted from her. Two male strangers came to her office and they demanded crucial information about BIUST from her,” said the source.

According to the source, before the alleged whistleblower and the two men could discuss anything she requested them to produce their identity cards but they declined stating that was not important.

“During the course of their conversation they threatened to kill her and that her body would be carried in bag and that scared her a lot; something which prompted her to report the matter to the police,” the source said. It is understood that the two men had allegedly accused the suspected whistleblower of bringing the name of BUIST into disrepute. The whistleblower is alleged to have disclosed how more than 400 computers owned by BUIST disappeared under mysterious circumstances.

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