The contract of the Director General of the Directorate of Intelligence and Security Service (DISS), Brigadier Peter Magosi, has been renewed by another three years to 2024, The Business Weekly & Review is reliably informed.
Magosi did not respond to a WhatsApp text sent to his mobile about his contract this week. DISS spokesman Edward Robert said details of his superior’s employment contract are confidential.
“What is important is that Brigadier Peter Magosi is the Director General of the DISS as it was communicated publicly when he was appointed and he is busy implementing his roadmap aimed at making the Directorate responsive to the needs of its stakeholders as he promised to do,” Robert said.
Should this be officially confirmed, it would end speculation that Magosi was to be axed after his first cousin, Ellias Magosi, was transferred from the powerful position of Permanent Secretary to the President (PSP) to the diplomatic service as Ambassador-at-Large in what looked like a demotion when Masisi reshuffled senior managers in the civil service in April this year .
Sources say the contract of Magosi the top spy was renewed two week ago. He was first appointed to the position in 2018 to replace the founding head of Botswana’s secret service, Isaac Kgosi, who was fired amid suspicions that he remained loyal to former president Ian Khama, who had emerged as Masisi’s arch enemy for allegedly betraying Khama in a secret deal to appoint his younger brother Tshekedi vice president and thus secure the ‘Khama dynasty’ in the presidency.
Peter was himself fired by Khama in 2014 in a thingamajig involving finger-pointing around the disappearance and/or theft of spying devices and guns. He has had a controversial record as the head of DISS mainly around fending off an alleged plot to assassinate President Masisi in a conspiracy that involved enemies inside Botswana supported by an international network of powerful individuals with an eye on Botswana’s vast mineral resources and wildlife heritage.
But he has had successes in certain respects. Notable among Peter’s positives has been creation of a public relations unit in order for DISS to interact with the media and through it the public, breaking with the practice of the Khama regime under which the DISS – and to a large extent, the government itself – was out of bounds to the press.
Upon his appointment, Magosi declared war on corruption and warned that his agents would pursue such matters tirelessly. However, even after blacklisting a few construction companies for what DISS termed their “illegal practices,” Magosi has failed to produce sufficiently convincing evidence in courts of law to obtain convictions.
Under him, DISS has also had to face allegations of election rigging from opposition parties after the general elections in 2019.
