Parliament in 2015

Dithapelo Keorapetse | Friday January 9, 2015 15:11

 

Many questions were asked by Members of Parliament (MPs) to government ministers, three themes discussed, two Bills passed, one deferred, one motion withdrawn, one negated and one adopted. Most importantly, in the 1st meeting of the 1st session of the 11th, Parliament approved over P2.4 billion as supplementary budget and extended the National Development Plan No 10 by a year.  Several interesting motions were deferred and will make part of the next session lively.

This week and next week, most MPs are at their constituencies doing consultations. These usually include but not limited to courtesy calls and or meetings with their local leaders such as Council Chairpersons/Mayors, councillors, Council Secretaries/Town Clerks, Police Station Commanders and Commanding Officers, Heads of Local and Government Departments, District Health Teams and many others. Consultations extend to the private sector, trade unions and employers organisations and culminate with the holding of Kgotla meetings where constituents can interact with their MPs, councillors and other leaders.

The problem with these consultations are that they have, like many of our national activities, become just rituals routinely held but with minimal impact on public policy outcomes. For instance, the current consultations are somewhat about the next session which is the budget session. However, the country’s economic high command in the Ministry of Finance and development Planning has almost completed formulation of the budget proposal to Parliament. Honestly there hasn’t been much consultations of ordinary citizens directly or indirectly through MPs, VDCs, trade unions, NGOs etcetera. Ours is not a developmental democracy whereby ideas come from the bottom to up or whereby citizens take collective decisions on what their developmental priorities are. It is by and large an elitist kind of arrangement of a paternalistic whereby ideas come from the top.

The consultations are nevertheless important for MPs to get ideas on what is going on in the constituencies so that they raise matters of concern to the people as themes, questions or motions in Parliament. In terms of influencing the budget, National Development Plans and such other developmental matters, MPs are largely constrained by the institutionalised (legally and through tradition) central planning by the country’s developmental elites (Cabinet, senior civil servants, parastatals CEOs and a few businesspeople) who practically answer the question of who gets what, where, when and why. Key to achieving developmental democracy is to institutionalise participatory democracy whose political leadership is transparent, accountable and responsive.

Some ideas that have to be explored to achieve the aforementioned model state of affairs include meaningful budget consultations, constituency development funds and executive councils with more political, financial and administrative powers and autonomy.

The current budget Pitsos are a joke in o far as they are unable to meaningfully shape the budget process. They are for all intends and purposes public relations exercises. City, Town and District councils are an extension of the Ministry of Local Government and therefore unable to properly and fully assist local people. With the advent of centralisation of various services in the past few years they are even worse of in terms of their ability to take services to the people.

There are numerous outstanding issues that Parliament has to deal with in the next session. MPs have acclimatised and most are ready for the next session. The issue of committees, which has caused so much interest, remains unresolved. However, some committees are scheduled to meet before the next session starts in February. MPs and Ministers, through the Speaker, have to resolve the issue of ministers answering of questions.

The issue is that some MPs complain that ministers are unwilling to adequately, accurately and honestly answer questions in Parliament. On the other hand some ministers think that some MPs are up to ridiculing, exposing and even making them appear incompetent so as to embarrass them.

Whilst it is important for ministers to appreciate the meaning of accountability in a democracy and respond to questions accurately, honestly and adequately, it is also vital for MPs to frankly and openly engage ministers and be fair in their criticism so as to avert hardening of feelings.

The next session will be interesting with interesting motions, questions, themes and other government business matters lined up. The writer wishes all Batswana a prosperous 2015.