Gaborone Central Police Station chief, Cavin Mookodi, has been suspended from office on allegations of misappropriation of funds late last year, say sources at the station.
It is alleged that he misappropriated exhibit money which was supposed to be used in ongoing criminal trials before the Courts.
The suspension of Mookodi and the reasons behind it have since been confirmed by the Botswana Police Service Public Relations Officer, Dipheko Motube who, however, denied other reports from the Station that there had been moves to reinstate Mookodi to his position.
“Such reports are not true. The truth is that the matter is still being addressed and a disciplinary hearing on the matter was supposed to have been held on 18 January, 2010 but was then postponed because of commitments of some officers who were supposed to sit on the hearing.” But our sources say that there had been some moves to get the case dismissed on grounds that there was not enough evidence though the money has not been recovered.
It is alleged that it was because of this that the hearing was not held on the date it was supposed to be held on 8 of January.
”Why was it not held on the date it was scheduled to be heard if there are no moves to have it dismissed?” asked the source.
Motube was not able to say when the disciplinary hearing will next sit.
“I do not know when it will sit as we are speaking,” he said but declining to say what the amount involved was.
This is not the first case in which a senior police officer has been involved in such a scandal.
In the past, one senior police officer, also a station commander, who has since retired, was initially alleged to have disappeared with huge amounts of exhibit money at night. He then turned up and his story was that he was kidnapped by some thieves at night who forced him to open the safe where exhibit money was kept. He claimed that the thieves left him on the outskirts of Gaborone with no shoes on his feet.
The case was never solved.
In another case, a police officer who was then working in the salaries department of the Police Service, David Williams, and his wife, Seonyana, who was self employed, defrauded the government of P1, 2 million. The case was tried in Gaborone Magistrate Court but was adjourned on several occasions and is now scheduled to be heard in March.
