AS I SEE IT

MICHAEL DINGAKE | Tuesday March 10, 2009 00:00

When Batswana talk about government, including some educated ones, they have in mind the Executive: the president, ministers, public servants, law officers, immigration officers, magistrates and all those who order people around, give them some service, threaten and punish them, if they do not do as expected. Few Batswana think of Parliament as part of government. Incidentally, even some MPs, particularly the ruling party ones, do not view Parliament, with its admixture of party representatives as part of government; they view it as a nondescript, nonsensical appendage of government, which now and then has the audacity to bark at and insult government, including His Excellency the President of our republic.

Parliament is one of the three arms constituting government: Parliament, Executive and the Judiciary; it makes laws, the Executive executes these laws and the Judiciary adjudicates in disputes arising from the application or misapplication of these laws. The arms of government are interdependent and equal in their spheres. Parliament on a closer look is primus inter pares -  first among equals. This is so, because Parliament sets the ball rolling by making laws without which no government worth the name can exist, since democratic government in particular is based on the laws and the constitution, by which the President and MPs swear when they assume government responsibility.

The separation of powers in government into the three arms, is absolutely essential so that you do not have one person making laws, executing them and being a judge on the same laws when disputes arise. Underlining this point, James Madison, American constitutionalist, intimated that if humans were angels there would be no need of government and if there were a government of angels there would be no need for laws!

The principle of the separation of powers, so eloquently expressed by Madison and others translates into another important principle of checks and balance. The concept recognises the fact that to balance the ends of government, the three arms have to check one another and nudge themselves as government towards the desired state of equilibrium. The story of checks and balances is a long one to be read in political science books.

In this article we are interested in how parliament as an arm of government is expected to oversee the Executive. Besides legislative duties, parliament's subsidiary role is naturally to see that the laws it passes for the public good are implemented. It would be queer for parliament to enact laws and then turn its back on them. It follows, in order for the checks and balance mechanism to function, there has to be a provision in the law, which enables parliament to do this.

The first such provision is that parliament is the sole arm, authorised to approve the budget. While the budget is presented by the Minister of Finance and Development Planning, a member of the Executive, it is the House/Parliament, which has the right, power and authority to critique, trim or reject the budget estimates presented. Since independence, the House has not been known to reject budget estimates, let alone trim these to any measure. This is puzzling since parliament does not even have a budget estimates committee to brief it in advance about estimates! Nor do MPs have any professional interest in scrutinising the Public Accounts Committee and Auditor's report, which is always bristling with Accounts Officers' noncompliance with the regulations. Quite obviously, parliament here plays lapdog role, not watchdog one!

The watchdog role, demands parliament establish Portfolio Committees, to interrogate Ministers on implementation of policies and laws pertaining to their portfolios. Questions in Parliament alone, do not suffice. Answers are always dodgy and not conducive to meaningful insight. In Portfolio Committees, Ministers may find it possible to bob and weave, but never to avoid being caught by a sucker punch. The absence of portfolio committees shows the House's disinterest in a watchdog role.

When independent democratic institutions are created, ironically by parliament, the MPs overlook the point that these bodies, IEC, DCEC, Ombudsman, etc, in principle have to report to Parliament instead of the Executive. By allowing these institutions to report to the OP, MPs allow the Executive to monitor itself, thus confirming their rubberstamp role     

On numerous occasions parliament passes motions or initiates programmes to publicise its work; these efforts are impetuously brushed aside by the Executive: Think of the programme, Dikgang tsa Palamente, very popular among listeners. Within a few weeks of the advent of the new VP, Lieutenant General Ian Khama, the programme was snuffed out; neither the MPs nor the Speaker made a squeaky protest! What about the many motions, passed unanimously and popular with the public, one of them, Honourable Joy Phumapi's motion on Declaration of Assets and Liabilities?

Among liberal democracies, Botswana leads the pack as far as the lapdog role of MPs is concerned. May it be the result of our cultural upbringing? Obeisance to authority, even when authority is wrong is in the genes. Batswana authorities are just as guilty. They stick to paternalism like leeches. Subordinates are expected to be subordinates in perpetuity. The cyclical process grinds on and on. Until and unless the voters begin to realise their representatives abdicate their mandate, to the Executive the moment they enter Parliament, the lapdog relationship between Parliament and the Executive will persist.

The perennial disease of lack of implementation capacity is basically a product of  Parliament not exercising its watchdog role. True, lack of implementation capacity is partly a consequence of lack of skills and poor work ethic in the public sector, but more directly, a result of failure of Parliament playing its watchdog role. The Executive may monitor the public service, but who monitors the Executive, if Parliament abdicates its constitutional role?