CoA Tells Molome To Return BOPEU’s P11M

Businessman Ernest Molome has been told by the Court of Appeal (CoA) to pay back the P11,604,000 he received from Botswana Public Employees Union’s (BOPEU) business wing, Babereki Investments.

Molome is a close associate of Andrew Motsamai, the former BOPEU president and executive chairperson of Babereki Investments.

This comes after the CoA rejected Molome’s appeal last Wednesday. The amount will be paid at 10% interest from the date of disbursement to date of payment.

Molome and his company Mamataz Enterprises (Pty) Ltd had approached the CoA seeking condonation for late filing, but on Wednesday their request for condonation as well as arguments for appeal were rejected by the CoA Justice Lakhvinder Singh Walia.

In his ruling, Walia took into consideration Molome’s new evidence purporting to show that indeed P1.2 billion funding was availed to BOPEU’s company and that only the union’s company Babereki Investments had decided not to make use of the facility. Further Molome had filed that he was owed P25 million by Babereki Investments on top of the slightly over P13 million he was paid by the company during Motsamai’s tenure as executive chairperson.

However in his analysis of Molome’s evidence, Walia rejected the evidence as not convincing enough, as it was just a letter from the funder not availing the P1.2 billion but promising to arrange the facility through Bank ABC or other means if the bank’s option failed. Justice Walia further observed that what was evident in the Sanlam CEO’s letter presented to the CoA by Molome was the immediate availability of only P50 million, with the P1.2 billion facility yet to be availed, and therefore, the letter cannot be used as proof of the availability of the said P1.2 billion facility from Sanlam.

Justice Walia said however Molome or Mamataz presented a claim on the P1.2 billion, which was not available for Babereki Investments, instead of presenting a three percent claim on the availed P50 million.

The CoA also held that the commission of P13,104,000 was paid on the basis of fraud.

Molome was identified by a Babereki forensic audit report as Babereki Investments’ go-to man during the reign of Motsamai, as he was the middleman for almost every business transaction of the union’s investment wing, despite him not possessing any academic expertise in the field.

Some of the transactions associated with him and Babereki Investments during Motsamai’s era include the acquisition of a funeral parlour, partnership for a Samsung shop, which has since gone bust, partnership with a developer for a Gaborone North plot, all of which have since been revisited and found suspect by the forensic report.