The Ruling Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) on Wednesday apologised to the nation for plagiarising former American president Barack Obama’s speech.
The alleged plagiarised speech was used by President Mokgweetsi Masisi at the just ended BDP special congress where he retained the presidency of the party.
“We have engaged the drafters of the speech and have come to a conclusion, they inadvertently did not properly paraphrase the part in question where the President spoke about the long held democracy in Botswana,” the BDP said in a statement.
It says the drafters placed the information for later attention but “unfortunately it found itself slipping through their fingers.”
The statement adds that “we therefore accept the mistake and would like to apologise to His Excellency and the nation for such a mistake and hope that it would never happen again.”
Obama’s speech which was copied word for word while he was still USA president states that “if there is anyone out there who still doubts that Americais a place where all things are possible, who wonders if the dream of our founders is alive in our time , who still questions the power of democracy, tonight is your answer.”
KO/as/APA