Of self interest and vultures
Ntibinyane Ntibinyane | Friday August 7, 2015 16:01
Sometime in June 2000 at a seminar at Botswana National Productivity Centre, President Ian Khama, then vice president, angered Members of Parliament (MPs) across the political divide after likening them to vultures that were all out to loot the coffers of the government.
President Khama said this in response to MPs who at that time demanded a huge salary hike. In a rare share of accord, members of political parties represented in parliament glibly agreed to a motion calling for salary hikes of MPs a few years after their salaries were hiked by 35 percent.
Still wet behind the issues in matters of political diplomacy, Khama was blunt in his response. He told the seminar that the political leadership in Botswana was motivated by self-interest and lust for power.
Following this statement Khama earned the wrath of politicians, not only from the then main opposition the Botswana National Front (BNF), but also from his own party the Botswana Democratic Party (BNF) .
Khama’s remarks caused uproar and debate in the media, political squares and corridors of academia. Khama received a severe backlash for the remarks, but clearly the man on the street was on his side, so was then president, Festus Mogae.
At the height of the uproar, Khama pulled the populist card, as he told the MPs that they were speaking for themselves when people who put them in power were wallowing in poverty.
At one point it was reported that his number one supporter, President Mogae asked Khama to apologise to his colleagues for calling them vultures but he refused. MPs were vultures. Period.
Fast forward 2015. It is perhaps the best time to review and analyse his remarks once more in the context of the current environment. Perhaps Khama was right that politicians are self-serving vultures out to loot the economy. The recent events in Parliament are a clear demonstration Khama may have been right in his infamous assessment of politicians in Botswana.
According to the media reports, sometime in April this year MPs from all the political parties represented in Parliament secretly increased their salaries following the passing of the National Assembly Salaries and Allowances Amendment Bill of 2015.
According to Sunday Standard, parliament increased the salaries of the president and his deputy by 26 percent. Cabinet ministers’ salaries were increased by 38 percent, while the leader of opposition, Deputy Speaker and assistant ministers’ salaries were increased by 39 percent. Ordinary MPs’ salaries were increased by 32 percent.
Other allowances and benefits due to the MPs such as constituency, hospitality, communication and many others were also increased by six percent.
Ironically, the ‘clandestine’ increment of the salaries occurred at the time when the civil servants’ salaries were increased by six percent, to the chagrin of the trade unions.
During the public service salary negotiations, the public sector trade unions had proposed 15% salary hike. The government turned down the proposal on the basis that the government does not have the funds to increase salaries of the public servants.
Legally there is nothing wrong with the increments, but morally this is wrong. The fact that the whole increment has shady connotations defeats the democratic ideals of transparency and accountability. In the face of tough economic conditions the expectation was for the MPs to lead by example and settle for less, but they chose to settle for more and leave the rest behind. This is the politicians’ ‘modus operandi’ that was passionately outlined by president Khama more than 15 years ago. In the face of public criticism there are some that have come to the defence of the MPs. The argument is that Botswana MPs are not well paid and that our MPs are amongst the lowest paid in Africa.
It is indeed truism that our MPs are not paid well, but what is morally wrong is for MP’s to secretly increase their salaries and for them to hike their salaries with close to 40 percent at a time when civil servants were only given salary increments of less than 10 percent. In the words of trade unionist Johnson Motshwarakgole no matter how you look at it, this is ‘wrong’.
Self-interest. This is probably in the DNA of all politicians not only in Botswana but elsewhere. In India a parliamentary committee recently recommended a 100% increment for MPs. Though the proposal was immediately shot down by the executive, it showed how greedy and self-centred politicians can be.
In July this year British MPs faced opposition from the public after they agreed to a salary increment of 10% despite an earlier undertaking by the government that salaries of public servants would be increased by only one percent in the next four years. The public demanded answers; there was uproar of some sort. In Botswana the flipside is the case. The same uproar over the increment is not felt in the country. Perhaps this is a clear sign of how weak the civic society is or how docile Batswana are. Either way, politicians had the last laugh.
After all is said and done, the self-interest DNA that president Khama talked about in 2000 cuts across political divides. Politicians are greedy. Members of the Opposition were willing collaborators in this act of shameless immorality. They beamed all the way to the bank and kept silent about the increment until a Sunday newspaper exposed this.
In 2000 when Khama clashed with MPs, a former member of parliament had tabled a motion calling for the increase of MPs salaries months after the same parliament refused to increase the old age pension on account that there were no funds.
Khama termed the move ‘abuse of power’ by parliament. For Khama it was hypocritical for MPs to demand an increment after they refused to increase the old age pension. Sadly after claiming the moral high ground more than 15 years ago, in 2015 President Khama is also the beneficiary of parliament’s ‘Machiavellian’ tactics of enrichment, having buried his head in the sand like the proverbial ostrich.
After all he is a politician. His assessment that MPs are vultures that are all out to loot the country and the economy is correct. All hail to the vultures!