The Barolong Senior Chief’s Representative, Kgosi Mompati Marumoloa, is facing the possibility of a justice system role reversal that could see him answering to criminal charges. The offence he is alleged to have committed occurred on August 12 at the Goodhope kgotla where he is based.
The Goodhope Station Commander, Superintendent Mogomotsi Kwapa, confirmed to Sunday Standard on Friday afternoon that Marumoloa has been charged with offensive conduct in breach of peace as stipulated in Section 90 of the Penal Code. While Kwapa would not give precise details save to say to say that the insults were directed at the complainants as a group, sources say that the Chief’s Representative hurled vicious, private-parts insults at female junior staff. One such insult was that whenever these women’s private parts start itching (he is said to have called those parts by their crude, long-form Setswana name), they talk about him behind his back. Another insult (a common, backwoods insult which claims the target’s mother as collateral damage) was to the effect of hyperbolically expressing intent to reverse the complainants’ birth process via the private parts in question. Some tribesmen at the kgotla are said to have unsuccesfully tried to broker peace but Marumoloa, who is a high-ranking member of the Barolong royal family, is said to have been too worked up to calm down.
From what Sunday Standard gathers, this anger was provoked by an allegation that had been made about some aspect of Marumoloa’s private life in his absence. Such allegation reached his ears with virtually no delay courtesy of a kgotla snitch. It was then that the Chief’s Representative unloaded on those who made the allegation. The August 12 incident is supposed to have happened publicly at the kgotla and much to the women’s humiliation. Greatly displeased, the women reported the matter to the Goodhope police who launched an investigation. As happens nowadays, one of the complainants made a Facebook post about the incident, asking advice of what redress she and the others could seek.
The outcome of the investigation was a formal charge against Marumoloa – who is still in post. The latter is one of the odder aspects of this matter: the alleged culprit and the complainants have to share the workplace every working day until the matter is resolved. It is unclear when such resolution will come but according to Superintendent Kwapa, the case file has been handed over to the Directorate of Public Prosecutions (DPP). If DPP decides to prosecute, the Chief’s Representative, who tries criminal cases at the Goodhope kgotla, will himself be tried for a criminal offence. And if the case does indeed go ahead, all the insults that he is alleged to have hurled at the women will be read out in open court.
