Botswana has officially apologised to Bridgette Motsepe for unfounded allegations of money laundering and conspiracy
After six years of controversy, the government in Gaborone has withdrawn the allegations against the South African businesswoman, promising that such mistakes will not be repeated
NAIROBI – The government of Botswana has once again apologised to Bridgette Motsepe, the South African businesswoman and ambassador accused of involvement in a money-laundering and conspiracy scandal against Gaborone in 2019. The message is identical to the one previously issued by the Botswana government in 2025, when the government retracted its allegations and officially apologised to Motsepe for the ‘false and unscrupulous’ accusations levelled against her.
He has now decided to reiterate this point through an unusual medium: a page in the Financial Times, featuring a paid advertisement in which the entire national leadership and Duma leader Boka reiterate their plea for forgiveness and give assurances that ‘falsifications of this kind will never happen again’.
The legal saga and the allegations against Motsepe
Motsepe, aged 66, is a mining executive and ambassador for economic development at the Pan-African Parliament, recognised as the first female and Black entrepreneur to make her mark in the mining industry following the end of apartheid. Her influence is underpinned by family ties, within a web of economic and political relationships that permeate the establishment of one of the continent’s most structured economies. Her brother is Patrice Motsepe, a mining billionaire and president of the Confederation of African Football since 2021. Her sister is Tshepo Motsepe, a businesswoman, physicist and wife of the South African president Cyril Ramaphosa. Her husband is Jeff Radebe, a politician who has served as a minister on five occasions, from the 1990s up to his most recent role as Minister of Energy between 2018 and 2019.
Motsepe came under scrutiny from the Botswana government in 2019, facing a web of allegations: involvement in a money-laundering scheme involving approximately $10 billion in funds stolen from the Botswana Central Bank and intended to overthrow the Botswana government, which was led at the time by Mokgweetsi Masisi, leader of the Botswana Democratic Party. The government had hired former South African prosecutor Gerrie Nel to lead the prosecution – a key figure in the murder trial of athlete Oscar Pistorius and a lawyer for AfriForum, a lobbying group representing the Afrikaner minority. The decision had been criticised as ‘alarming’ by the Law Society of Botswana, an organisation representing Botswana’s lawyers, who were perplexed by the alliance between the government and a group accused of racist tendencies.
The affaire dragged on for six years, degenerating into what Motsepe described as a ‘trauma’ and which he attributed to political reprisals against him. One of the triggers, Motsepe told Africa Report, was the friendship between his family and the former Botswanan leader Seretse Ian Khama, who stepped down in 2018 and was at odds with Masisi himself. Motsepe had accepted the Botswana government’s apology in 2025, but announced his intention to seek ‘justice’ and compensation for the damage to his reputation caused by a saga lasting more than five years. A saga born of – and fuelled by – the ‘fabrications’ condemned by the new Botswana.
