The government of Botswana is resisting payment of an R83 million 5.1 million legal bill owed to South African mining executive and businesswoman Bridgette Motsepe-Radebe, sister of billionaire Patrice Motsepe, after a Botswana High Court ruled that she had been falsely implicated in one of the most damaging and internationally publicised financial conspiracy allegations in the country's recent history.
The legal fees claim follows a consent order issued by the Botswana High Court in June 2025 in which the court recorded that the state remained liable for Motsepe-Radebe's reasonable legal costs after clearing her of allegations that she had colluded with former Botswana President Ian Khama to siphon billions of dollars from the Bank of Botswana in a destabilisation plot. The court had previously ruled in a full judgment that the allegations against Motsepe-Radebe were unlawful, false and reckless. In the consent order, she abandoned her claim for personal damages but the state's liability for her legal costs was preserved, amounting to 68 million pula, approximately R83 million at current exchange rates.
The Botswana government has now told Motsepe-Radebe's legal team that it has made only partial compliance with the court order, citing logistical and administrative constraints in honouring its full financial obligation. The state confirmed that publication of formal public apologies in South African, British and American media, including the Sunday Times, SABC, the Financial Times, CNN and the Wall Street Journal, is proceeding but has been delayed by unspecified administrative difficulties. The apologies, which the court ordered to be completed within seven days of the ruling, are now many months overdue.
