BCP routs GCC again

Tsaone Basimanebotlhe | Tuesday September 9, 2014 12:09

BCP leader Dumelang Saleshando leading BCP members as they leave Lobatse High Court following their victory against GCC earlier this year: PIC TSELE TSEBETSAME

In apparent effort to save face, the Gaborone City Council (GCC) was last Friday forced to climb down and pay a battle-ready Botswana Congress Party (BCP) P13 000 in an out-of-court settlement.

The GCC recently took the BCP to court to compel the party to remove its campaign posters from the city’s streetlights and other electrical installations such as traffic lights.

In particular the council wanted BCP Chairperson Motsei Rapelana to remove her posters along Kgalemang T. Motsete/airport road and Kgalema T. Motsete/Sebele fire station intersections traffic signals poles, and BCP president Dumelang Saleshando to remove his from along Chuma and Segoditshane street poles. The GCC Council wrote BCP sometimes in June and registered an urgent application with the High Court in July. However the court saw no urgency in the matter and threw it out. However the GCC, who believed BCP was violating the city’s bye-laws waited their chance in court. The Lobatse High Court was scheduled to hear the matter.

However once it had established the council was going ahead with the suit the BCP made a counter-application whereby it questioned the GCC’s selective prosecution.The council has not sued Botswana Democratic Party, which carries a picture of the president alongside those of its council and parliamentary candidates, and the BCP was expected to argue that if the council was genuine in its intentions, it would have to sue the president and the BDP.

Finding itself between a rock and a hard place, the City Council was forced to retreat by way of an out-of-court settlement. The settlement figure is the money the BCP incurred in legal costs in the urgent application.

The BCP agreed as part of the settlement to withdraw its case against the GCC. It also agreed it would remove its posters from traffic lights.

GCC legal advisor Sono Seisa confirmed the city council settled out of court last Friday. “ We have all agreed to withdraw our cases that are before courts. BCP will remove their posters that are on robots only. And we have agreed to pay their legal costs,” he said.

“I confirm that we settled out of Court on Friday. We currently await the GCC’s notice of withdrawal of their action. We have agreed there will be no order as to costs save for the costs in the urgent application that they lost,” BCP attorney Martin Dingake told Mmegi yesterday.

The settlement brings to conclusion a highly anticipated battle that would possibly see the city council coming out of court bruised in more ways than one, even if it one the case.

Among the expected arsenal from the BCP cache would have been the argument the city council should sue the president and the BCP. Previous judgments by the courts bar anyone from suing the president.