While Lt Gen Ian Khama’s network of white friends and business partners in the tourism industry has taken to the barricades against the Mokgweetsi Masisi presidency, Sunday Standard investigations have revealed that Botswana’s indigenous old boys’ network is intriguingly. also joined at the hip with the former president.
Even before he became president, Khama had sprawling assets and income sources mostly in the tourism industry. Between 1999 and 2002, he had acquired shares in Kenmoir (Pty)Ltd; Border Investments (Pty) Ltd; Baobab Safari Lodges; Linyanti Investments; Chadibe Springs; Seba Safaris and Phuti Ya Bangwato (Pty) Ltd.
Close to three weeks after he became president, on 18th April 2008 he together with his trusted aide and former Cabinet Minister Thapelo Olopeng set up Nextwork Holdings.
A huge investor in photographic safari tourism, it was during his term in office that photographic safari became an unstoppable industry juggernaut, trumping the rival game hunting safari. This was after he banned game hunting safari that much against expert advice.
For much of his term in office, President Masisi has been fighting pitched battles with photographic safari tourism investors, following his decision to reverse Khama’s game hunting ban.
Masisi’s other potential battlefront is the country’s corporate network. This threat has however fizzled out, or so it seems.
No sooner had Khama ascended to the presidency than his right-hand man, Isaac Kgosi rose from the former commander’s batman to a key cog in the president inner circle, courted by the country’s corporate movers and shakers.
Months before Khama took the oath of office, corporate Botswana was alreadyschmoozing with Kgosi.
Hitherto a corporate network outsider, Kgosi suddenly found himself rubbing shoulders with business old hands Carter Masire former Botswana Defence Force (BDF) Commander and Blackie Marole former Debswana Managing Director.
In November 2007, five months before Khama became president, Khosi was a third in the tripartite partnership at Sediba Properties alongside Masire and Marole.
Two months later, January 2008 Kgosi and Masire surfaced as new shareholders at Credit Reference Bureau Africa (Pty)Ltd together with corporate honcho, Mclean Letshwiti.
The trio was joining a number of founding shareholders among them President Khama’s legal adviser Parks Tafa and former High Commissioner to India Dorcus Kgosietsile.
Kgosi, Masire and Letshwiti also joined the same group as shareholders at Collection Africa (Pty) Ltd. Kgosi and Kgosietsile’s names later cropped up at Choppies Supermarket chain stores. Kgosi as shareholder and Kgosietsile board member.
Kgosi, his wife Jennifer and Marole were also partners at Belabela Asphalt.
The then Director General of Directorate of Intelligence and Security Services took to the choppy corporate waters like a shark. He branched off on his own and set up Silver Shadows which was awarded a lucrative tender by Debswana Mining Company, then under Marole.
Kgosi. later roped in his wife as co shareholder in Lighthouse FM. His wife later cut her own swathe in the corporate world as sole director of Clearpicture and Ketapele Centre.
With Kgosi in the mix, the old boys club was shaping up as a sort of inner circle to the president’s inner circle, businessmen who were outside the traditional political and policy chains of command, but united by their common connection to the emerging center of power.
By the time Khama took office, Kgosi and his business associates in the old boy’s network had fossilized into a power elite. with the influence to grease the revolving door that shepherds the anointed few into boardrooms of state-owned institutions and big corporations.
The old boys’ associations with Kgosi may not have helped them get ahead, but it certainly did not hurt their chances.
McLean Letshwiti was appointed to the board of Botswana Telecommunications Corporation on November 2016. At the time he was also in the board of Avis-rent-a Car and had previously been chairperson of Botswana Insurance Holding Limited (BIHL) until 2008.
Carter Masire on the other hand was appointed to the board of Botswana Insurance Holding Limited,2015, Air Botswana, Botswana Stock Exchange and Stock Brokers Botswana.
At the time, Khama’s legal brains Parks Tafa was already a board member at Stanbic Botswana, having been appointed in 2004. He was later appointed to the board of Wilderness Safaris.
Blackie Marole was appointed to chair the board of Botswana Development Corporation (BDC) in 2012 and chairman of the Board of African Energy Botswana (Pty) Limited in, 2011. He had previously served as Chairman of Botswana Power Corporation and Water Utilities Corporation.
Kgosi’s wife Jennifer was appointed to the board of Botswana Postal Services.
By 2018, Kgosi and Khama between themselves were directly tied to more than a dozen companies and were two degrees from more than a dozen others.
For more than a decade, President Masisi was an outsider to this corporate old boys’ club which was bound together by a dense interlock network — a network of directors connected by serving on the same corporate boards, maintaining a cohesive elite identity within three degrees of separation from Khama and Kgosi.
This network was so connected that a sneeze in one boardroom triggered a flu epidemic infecting the who is who of Botswana’s corporate world.
For example, the corruption case against former cabinet minister Vincent Seretse which was later dropped threw up names of the usual suspects together with those of more than half a dozen corporates big shots
Among the big names that either cropped up in court documents or were to take the stand against the minister were Parks Tafa, Mclean Letshwiti, Blackie Marole, former Cabinet minister who was also co-shareholder with Kgosi, Tafa and Letshwiti at both Credit Reference Bureau Africa and Collection Africa (Pty) Ltd. Tebelelo Seretse, another shareholder at the two companies and former Botswana’s Ambassador to the United Nations Emeldah Mathe, former Minister of Wildlife and Tourism Tshekedi Khama, Choppies Managing Director Ramachandran Ottapathu,former Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) deputy treasurer Paul Paledi, President Khama’s finance man John Little, and businessman Victor Senye.
The case was expected to unravel the cross directorship of the small but powerful business network which has a firm grip on the country’s economy.
According to the court documents, Seretse attended shareholders/Directors meeting of Drake& Scull Botswana as an alternate Director on Behalf of Paul Paledi. Among other directors of Drake and Scull were Tshekedi Khama. Paledi who was charged alongside Seretse was director of Serala, the company that was given the multi million Pula BTC Nteletsa 11 tender and distributorship of Be Mobile airtime. Choppies Managing Director Ramachandran Ottapathu was expected to testify that Serala distributed beMobile air time through Choppies.
A number of witnesses were also expected to testify that Seretse was director at RPC Data where Paledi was once director.
Shareholders at RPC Data who were to testify were Parks Tafa, Tebelelo Seretse, John Little and Emeldah Mathe.
Other big names that were initially linked to Serala were Blackie Marole, Mac Clean Letshwiti and Victor Senye. The trio were to take a stand against Paledi arguing that it was not true that they were shareholders at Serala (Pty) Ltd and that they were only connected to Serala through a company called Sugar Loaf (Pty) Ltd.
Isaac Kgosi’s corruption investigation also turned up the same names. Among those who were either investigated or expected to either testify against the former Directorate of Intelligence and Security Services Director General were Parks Tafa, Blackie Marole, John Little and Ramachandran Ottapathu.
So why isn’t the old boys’ network pushing back against the Masisi administration like the tourism industry?
One possibility is that it is happening in the shadows. Another possibility: To mobilize a movement, you need a united network, and there is no longer one. The old boy’s network is divided with some lining up behind the man who has now taken over the leavers of power while others are still loyal to the old regime.
