A regional training workshop for the Commonwealth Africa Anti-Corruption Centre has highlighted the importance of cross-border co-operation in solving corruption and asset recovery cases.

During August 2017, experts from the International Centre for Asset Recovery (ICAR) conducted a regional training workshop in Botswana in collaboration with the Commonwealth Africa Anti-Corruption Centre (CAACC) for 35 investigators and legal officers of Anti-Corruption Agencies in eight Commonwealth African countries: Botswana, Ghana, Lesotho, Kenya, Mauritius, Swaziland, Tanzania and Zambia. The regional training initiative was co-financed by the African Development Bank, CAACC and the Basel Institute on Governance.

The workshop aimed at providing a platform for inter-agency networking across regional borders as participants were divided into seven groups and encouraged to interact with one another in the interest of improving regional co-ordination and co-operation.

Judge Lot Moroka of Botswana attended the final day of the workshop when the participants presented their findings in respect of the simulated financial investigation, which they were required to “investigate”. During his subsequent presentation on a “Regional perspective of the problems and challenges posed by the investigation and prosecution of corruption cases”, he also commented on these presentations, reinforcing the importance of addressing the elements of the offences charged. He congratulated the ICAR experts on the manner in which they had facilitated the training as it clearly allowed the participants to match relevant evidence to the elements. Corruption cases are lost because there is a failure at a procedural level to follow rules of evidence and procedure, and, at a substantive evidentiary level, to provide adequate evidence to prove guilt beyond a reasonable doubt.