Ntlo ya Dikgosi should be our House of Lords
Bame Piet | Friday June 26, 2015 15:29
We use the First-Past-the-Post electoral system, which allows the party with majority elected members to automatically take government. Assuming power is irrespective of the percentage of voters the majority party gets, as all it needs is 50 percent of the seats in Parliament.
The Westminster system has the House of Commons, an equivalent of Botswana’s House of National Assembly, or Parliament. Our colonial masters also have the House of Lords, which in our case, could be the Ntlo ya Dikgosi, which was for a long time before indigenising the name in the early 2000s was known as House of Chiefs.
With two houses of power; Parliament and the Ntlo ya Dikgosi, one would expect the latter to be an equivalent or carry similar weight as the House of Lords in the United Kingdom. At the least, the Ntlo ya Dikgosi should be empowered to refuse or approve a bill, policy or have some level of influence in law making.
But as per constitutional dictates, the lower house is just an advisory body, with no powers to refuse or amend laws.
Perhaps this is why more and more Dikgosi are abandoning Bogosi for politics, the latest being the Barolong royal and deputy chairperson of Ntlo ya Dikgosi Kgosi Lotlamoreng II. He stepped down to join to contest the Goodhope-Mabule by-election for the opposition Umbrella for Democratic Change, where he says he would be better placed to represent his people better.
But how did politicians steal all the powers from Dikgosi for themselves? If a deputy chairperson of such an important institution feels disadvantaged, what about other public servants at other levels of governance.
There are many forums or platforms where government officials discuss issues before a policy, or bill can be formulated. During stakeholder consultation meetings, one would expect the chairperson to be briefed and his word should carry more weight especially that these are leaders on whom government spends thousand or even millions of pula annually, sending them on benchmarking missions abroad.
Not only that. Our neighbouring countries have come here as well to do benchmarking against our governance practices.
Being a member of the Commonwealth, Botswana should aspire to emulate something worthwhile, as structure to make real and visible change such as the House of Lords. Our constitution provides for specially elected MPs to serve and be of same level of authority at elected MPs. The same goes for elected regional chiefs endorsed by parliamentarians and appointed by the President to the Ntlo ya Dikgosi. Assumption is that these elected Dikgosi are of same authority with the traditional Dikgosi who represent their communities in the House. Moreover, this breed of Dikgosi is not just political appointee, but people with knowledge not only of traditional affairs, but those able to scrutinise laws and policies for the betterment of the nation.
The government should have given them these powers when it amended the Bogosi Act to increase the number from 12 (eight paramount chiefs and four nominated members) to the current number.
According to the website of the UK Parliament, members of the House of Lords represent a variety of interests.
‘They represent a wide range of professions – in medicine, law, business, the arts, science, sports, education, the armed forces, diplomacy and public service.
The House of Lords is characterised by ‘independence of thought.’ This is partly because a significant part of the membership is non-party-political, for example, the Crossbenchers and bishops’.
This is what the Botswana government should have adopted when it amended the Bogosi Act following the Balopi Commission.
Another similarity of the House of Lords is that it has about 790 members who are eligible to take part in the work of the House of Lords.
‘Others include 26 archbishops and bishops and 92 hereditary peers. There is no upper limit on the total number of members’.
‘Crossbenchers do not support any political party. Many are appointed principally because of their experience outside the House. Their participation allows voices that might not otherwise be heard in the political process to contribute to discussion of draft laws and in-depth consideration of government policy’.
Life peers: The majority (about 700) of members are appointed for their lifetime by the Queen on the advice of the Prime Minister. Any British, Irish or Commonwealth citizen who is a UK resident and taxpayer over the age of 21 is eligible to be nominated or can apply to become a member, via the independent House of Lords Appointments Commission.
The House of Lords also has Archbishops and bishops: 26 Church of England archbishops and bishops sit in the House. When they retire as bishops their membership of the House ceases and is passed on to the next most senior bishop.
Elected hereditary members: The House of Lords Act 1999 ended the right of most hereditary peers to sit and vote in the House. Ninety-two remain.
How the House of Lords is organised
Members sit in the chamber according to the party or group they belong to. The government and the main opposition party or parties each have a leader, business managers (whips) who organise the work of the House and spokespeople who sit on the frontbench. Crossbenchers have a convenor but, because they have no party affiliation, they do not have a whip system.
The House of Lords is the second chamber of the UK Parliament. It is independent from, and complements the work of, the elected House of Commons. The Lords shares the task of making and shaping laws and checking and challenging the work of the government.
The Lords has three main roles: Making laws In-depth consideration of public policy, Holding government to account and Making laws.
“Members spend almost half of the time in the House considering bills (draft laws). All bills have to be considered by both Houses of Parliament before they can become law. During several stages, members examine each bill, line-by-line, before it becomes an Act of Parliament (actual law). Many of these bills affect our everyday lives, covering areas such as welfare, health and education .”
Ours has no such powers or appeal. Ntlo ya Dikgosi has no powers to decline a bill or return it to the government for amendments.
Members use their extensive individual experience to investigate public policy. Much of this work is done in select committees - small groups appointed to consider specific policy areas. In the 2013-14 session, House of Lords select committees produced 31 reports on subjects including economic affairs, European Union powers and advances in science. Many select committee meetings involve questioning expert witnesses working in the field, which is the subject of the inquiry. These meetings are open to the public.
Members scrutinise the work of the government during question time and debates in the chamber, where government ministers must respond. In the 2013-14 session, members held the government to account with 7,559 oral and written questions and 247 debates on issues ranging from child poverty to immigration. The public is welcome to visit and sit in the galleries overlooking the chamber during business.
The Ntlo ya Dikgosi has similar debates where ministers stand before the House to update it on government issues. These ministers can provide false information to the House and not be punished.
Looking at a crop of inexperienced ministers following the fall of giants last year, and the year before, perhaps the Ntlo ya Dikgosi would be more important to save the situation in some instance as many of its members have been in the business.
Why Lotlamoreng II left the position of deputy chairman of Ntlo ya Dikgosi, to become backbencher lies in Michael Dingake’s column this week, “Bogosi has lost political status and has left standing of Ntlo ya Dikgosi as a smokescreen to bamboozle and manipulate traditionalism.”
Just this week the Ntlo ya Dikgosi unanimously adopted a motion calling for the introduction of community radio stations, something which the government has refused to venture into, on grounds that radio stations have potential to promote tribalism. It may not be way off to assume Ntlo ya Dikgosi might as well be singing to the wrong tune on this one.
And to correct the anomaly, we may have to think about amending the Constitution to empower the Ntlo ya Dikgosi. The move will also empower Ntlo ya Dikgosi to mediate when there is a stalemate in Parliament.