Born Again

Source : Kutlwano

Author : Ndingililo Gaoswediwe

Location : Mahalapye

Event : Interview

In his song titled Moral Choices, South African poet, Mzwakhe Mbuli, muses on the choices people make. He chants: some choose bananas while some choose machine guns. Like everybody else Hugh Molale one day made a choice. He decided to become a criminal. He committed various crimes just to make a quick buck. Then one day the long arm of the law caught up with him. He was convicted and sent to jail. That was in 1996. He became a prison regular, but would not change his bad habit. Then in 2007 he became more daring and thought he could outwit the police and maneuver an escape right under their noses. However, his vain attempt to escape arrest earned him a bullet wound when the police shot at him. For the umpteenth time he landed in prison. This time around he reconsidered his unenviable career. He sobered up to a new reality and decided once and for all, that he would not take the crime route again. After this final stint in jail, he went into business.

Kutlwano caught up with him at this year’s Prisons Day Celebration in Mahalapye where he showcased the services his company offers. He runs Rent A Wreck, a youth car-hire company. You would expect society to be happy that Molale has turned a leaf. Not so, or maybe people just have a strange way of showing their approval. Forget the fact that he did time as punishment for doing crime and in the process rehabilitated. That is not how many people look at it. To many he remains a criminal. In fact his decision to go into business was mainly influenced by society’s negative attitude towards him, rehabilitated as he was. Everywhere he went, he was stigmatized: people simply would not trust him with anything and job prospects were nil as he had a criminal record and his fingerprints were stored in the police repository as evidence. “The situation got out of hand and batho ba a go tlhoboga ba re o serukhuthi (people lose trust in you and treat you as a criminal).” 

Molale thought long and hard about the future. He had to make a choice: either he went back to a life of crime, which would most likely lend him in jail or lead to death – as has happened with many ex-inmates, or he found something positive to do with his life. Strangely the idea to run a car rental service flittingly occurred to him when he first entered prison back in 1996. The idea became his only source of hope if he had to find assimilation into society and to win its trust. Despite the challenges, Molale felt determined to live his dream. He had ample time to study while in prison and so enrolled with the Local Enterprise Authority (LEA) where he was trained in entrepreneurial development.

He scooped the award for the best-marketed business enterprise. At this stage, he was confident that his business plan had passed. However, he still had to serve a five-year jail term. Fortunately for him the sentence was reduced to three years after President Lt. Gen. Seretse Khama Ian Khama pardoned him. “President Khama is involved in the development of convicts through his regular visits to prisons. Given his status, a single visit to prison means a lot - care, love and motivation. Therefore, it is upon us who have been there to appreciate his efforts by changing for the better. He has an ear for both inmates and ex-convicts,” enthuses Molale. Molale says following his commuted sentence, he was put on extra mural service at Ghanzi Prison. He finished his term and, determined to make it in life through honest means, he set out to start his own business. “Through LEA, I managed to put everything together, but after a long process because I had to battle with CEDA for funding. I was open, telling my business advisor that I was an ex-convict, and when the journey got tough I thought CEDA were giving me a hard time because I was an ex-convict,” he says. But Molale was determined to succeed, and CEDA finally financed his project. Thus Rent-A-Wreck took off and he has not looked back since. Rent-A-Wreck is an American-African Franchise and the first of its kind in Botswana. Business has been tough though as this type of business is more profitable through external linkages, says Molale. What more with competition from already existing car rental giants!

Notwithstanding, he hopes to spread his wings and is currently looking to obtain a professional license from Rent-A-Wreck America to allow him to reach out to an international clientele. “I hope for tremendous growth and I want to own the African Franchise which I intend to make a cut above the rest,” he says, a broad determined smile plastered on his face. The license, he says, will also allow tourists across the globe access to his services, thus putting Botswana on the global map.

Molale believes he could never have made it without the help of the Botswana Prison Service (BPS) Commissioner, Silas Motlalekgosi, whom he describes as one of the best commissioners the country has ever had. “Motlalekgosi has an open door policy and he is always willing to help every prisoner to change his or her life for the better,” he says. However, Molale regrets that many ex-convicts have gone back to prison out of desperation. This is because their fingerprints remain in police records and portray them as criminals. This he says, will always kill ex-prisoner’s chances of getting a job, even before they set out to find one.

Ex-convicts who served time for offences such as threat to kill and passion killings should be given a certain degree of amnesty if they are to be absorbed by the job market, he says.  The existing exclusions make it all the harder for them to be reintegrated into society. Failure to fully accept reformed prisoners can only mean perpetual life of crime for them, as running a business is a huge challenge “in this dog eat dog world”. He believes there is need for an intense study to get a true picture of unemployed ex-convicts and that of recidivism due to rejection by the job market.

Molale also reckons there is need for the prisons department to engage clinical psychologists for professional counselling fellowship. This will disabuse ex-convicts of their inferiority complex, which he argues in most cases stems from “re-sentencing” by society through rejection and stigmatization. ENDS

Teaser:

Trapped between prison walls, Hugh Molale sobered up to a new reality. He turned his life around but what if he found a society that would not forgive and forget?