The federation’s deputy secretary general Ketlhalefile Motshegwa told Mmegi that the Speaker has consistently denied them permission to address the General Assembly on matters that affect the public. “We have made three attempts. We wrote to the Speaker in the first place and she said that she did not receive our letter. In the second attempt she said that it was late as Parliament was closing. “We wrote to her prior to the beginning of the current seating but she has kept quite. Now we can see that she is refusing us access to Parliament,” said Motshegwa.
Motshegwa said that the Speaker’s actions to deny stakeholders access to Parliament are frustrating and not living to democratic principles. He said they tried all to get access to Parliament and will have to find ways to raise public awareness on what is happening in the National Assembly. He said that the issues they wanted to enlighten Parliament on are of national concern, further noting that the House keeps passing draconian laws that negatively impact on governance and democracy. “Legislation should be used to promote peace and entrench human rights and the legislature must be effective for democracy to prosper. It is a sad period for Botswana’s democracy with Parliament that is engaged in unjust and bad legislation and at times just a rubber stamp for the fancies of the executive,” he said. Motshwegwa charged that this is emanating from authoritarian rule rather than democratic legislation where the ruling party is abusing the majority in Parliament to engage in power politics rather than value politics, to coerce legislative process to pass bad laws which is repugnant of democratic and republican politics.
