Information reaching Kossyderrickent has it that Journalist confirmed Carter Morupisi has been sentenced to 7 years imprisonment after he received a $46K Land Cruiser as a bribe to award a $36.7 million tender contract to a company in 2014.
Botswana’s former Permanent Secretary to the President, Carter Morupisi has been sentenced to 7 years in prison for corruption.
He received a $46,000 Land Cruiser as a bribe to award a $36.7M tender contract to a company in 2014.
The Court of Appeal (CoA) sitting of three judges on Friday imposed a stiffer penalty on Morupisi as they felt that his plea for a lenient sentence did not mean that the courts should look the other way. The ex-top civil servant is now set to endure seven long years behind bars after the CoA overruled the initial judgment. Two years ago, Morupisi was found guilty by the Gaborone High Court on three counts of corruption. The charges spanned from the infamous Toyota Land Cruiser and the P500 million contract between the Botswana Public Officers Pension Fund (BPOPF) and Capital Management Botswana (CMB), an asset management company. During initial sentencing, Morupisi was however only given suspended jail terms instead of serving a prison sentence and ordered to pay P130, 000. However in an attempt to clear his name, Morupisi approached the CoA just before the 2024 General Election hoping that it would reverse the judgment delivered by the High Court two years ago and be cleared to stand for office. In his appeal, the former PSP, had cited that he was a first time offender, a man who was on advanced years in the evening of his life only waiting to meet his maker.
Morupisi further argued that the vehicle in question had since been forfeited to the State and he had lost his good name. However, it turned out that he opened a can of worms on himself as the CoA panel of three judges of Justice Tebogo Tau, Singh Walia and Baaitse Nkabinde was of the view that he got off lightly. The three judges went on to impose a stiffer penalty on Morupisi as they felt that his grounds for a lenient sentence did not mean that the courts should look the other way. “The offences committed by the appellant are serious and secondly that the sentence imposed by the trial court is so disproportionate to the enormity of the crime as to amount to manifest miscarriage of justice,” the three judges stated. After careful consideration of the heads of arguments submitted, the three judges put Morupisi behind bars. They stated that this was supposed to be the initial sentence looking at the seriousness of his offences. “There are no redeeming features in whatsoever in this case and immediate custodial sentence is called for. “It must be said in conclusion that the sentences below reflect a proper tempering thereof with mercy, being substantially lower than the maximum sentences prescribed by the relevant legislation,” reads the judgment.
A panel of three judges, CoA president Tebogo Tau, Justices Baaitse Nkabinde and Singh Walia agreed that trial court cannot be faulted for having ably connected the dots looking backwards at the intricate web of evidential material.
“The drawn-out web like bed of factual matrix contained in the record, delineated in the judgment a quo and further summarised above, sufficiently implicated the appellant beyond reasonable doubt,” said the judges. READ MORE HERE
The panel gave the former Permanent Secretary to the President (PSP) until today (Friday) to address them on why his sentence should not be varied.
He was convicted in November 2022 on two counts of corruption and one count of money laundering and was on count one sentenced to two years imprisonment wholly suspended for three years on condition that he does not commit the same offence.
On count two, Justice Chris Gabanagae of Gaborone High Court fined him P50 000 or five years imprisonment should he default, while on count three, he was fined P80 000 or eight years imprisonment, should he default.
Morupisi was further given 90 days to pay while the Toyota Land Cruiser which had been found to be proceeds of crime was forfeited to the State.
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