It has been a hectic sitting; some of the business was transacted midnight. During the budget session, Parliament adopted motions on the Review of Legislation that bars allocation of land to beneficiaries of deceased applicants; Introduction of Dual Citizenship; Re-introduction of the service of emptying pit latrines; Relocation of the Department of Mining and Geological Engineering of the College of Engineering and Technology at BIUST from Palapye to Selebi-Phikwe. The motion on setting up of the Coal Liquefaction Project in Selebi-Phikwe was withdrawn following an answer provided on the same by the minister responsible for energy. An urgent motion by the opposition which sought to deal with the Court of Appeal judgement was negated before it could be fully debated. All the adopted and negated motions were from the opposition. It has not been an easy ride by the opposition; sometimes the ruling party had to collapse numbers in the House to sabotage the motions, especially where they thought it might be political suicide to openly negate. For some motions, some of the few ruling party members of the backbench mustered some courage to agree with the motions which were clearly in the interests of the electorates. It is very rare for the front bench to debate and openly agree with the opposition on anything even if it is the right thing to do; they would rather sit and listen to the debate and not vote. This was the case with the adopted motions.
Parliament passed the following Bills: Appropriation (2017/2018) Bill, 2017 (Bill No. 2 of 2017) or the “budget” as it is commonly referred to; Supplementary Appropriation (2014/2015) Bill, 2016 (Bill No. 6 of 2016); Court of Appeal (Amendment) Bill, 2017 (Bill No. 3 of 2017); Emergency Water Security and Efficiency Project (International Bank for; Reconstruction and Development (IBRD)) (Loan Authorisation) Bill, 2017 (Bill No. 5 of 2017); Immigration (Amendment) Bill, 2016 (Bill No. 23 of 2016); Income Tax (Amendment) Bill, 2016 (Bill No. 18 of 2016) and Presidents (Pensions and Retirement Benefits) (Amendment) Bill, 2016 (Bill No. 22 of 2016).
