BDF SEX PREDATORS ON THE LOOSE Senior female soldiers target junior officers and civilians
BOTSWANA Defence Force is allegedly battling the sexual abuse of female junior officers by senior female officers and this has spilled over to unsuspecting civilians.
Although such incidents among soldiers hardly get reported, civilians do report the matters to police.
The latest is an incident in which a 30-year-old female soldier at Glen Valley was on Saturday morning arrested after allegedly raping a 29-year-old nurse. On Thursday morning, Lorraine Polao’s charges of assault were to be changed to rape after investigations by Broadhurst Police proved that the crime was indeed rape and not just assault.
Although this has been denied, impeccable sources claimed this week that the liquidation process started on Wednesday.
The grocer is not new to troubles as it was accused of pricefixing and distortion of the local retail sector by the Competition Authority (CA) back in 2018.
Payless, together with Choppies and another, were reportedly involved in a three-party buying group.
A buying group is an arrangement whereby companies use their combined purchasing power to achieve the best prices from suppliers.
However, the arrangement came to a halt when Competition Authority ordered that the arrangement be dissolved as it carried no economic benefits for the public.
Its troubles continued last year when its name appeared notably in the Choppies Legal Report which was prepared by Desai Law Group (DLG).
Ottapathu was accused, in the report, of allegedly using Choppies money to assist one Mohamed Saleem Abdul Malique to purchase 10 percent shares in Payless.
He was said to have used P4 320 000 which belonged to Choppies to assist Malique to acquire shares in Payless.
Meanwhile, Choppies - the troubled giant retailer which has also been running Payless operations much to the shock and horror of shareholders - is also faced with imminent collapse, The Voice can reveal.
The largest single employer in the private sector with a staff complement of 7000 will be brought to its knees by gross mismanagement that flagrantly flouted all corporate governance rules in the book.
Their much awaited audited financial results for the year ended June 30 posted on their website have indicated a staggering loss of P455 million after tax.
To make matters worse, the disheartening results are also accompanied by a qualified opinion from the auditors, which is essentially a warning to financiers and shareholders alike to rely on the results at their own peril.
“To release results late and release them with a qualified opinion is a disaster because it simply means Choppies suspension on the Botswana Stock Exchange won’t go away anytime soon,” an expert has indicated.
Choppies was slapped with a suspension on the Botswana Stock Exchange in 2018, following scathing allegations of overstated and falsified accounts that were confirmed by a forensic audit.
The forensic audit also revealed Choppies directors overstated their stock and flouted competition authority rules by investing in other retail entities like Fours and Payless without seeking authority from the board and the shareholders, with the profits accruing only to the directors.
An inside source who was recently retrenched said top management was open about the fact that the chain store, which owes local suppliers over P1.3 billion, was in a downward spiral as they continued to sink deeper in debt with no financier willing to come to the rescue.