Our parliament is going down

Mmegi Editor | Thursday February 25, 2016 17:16

The ugly scenes range from legislators getting thrown out by security guards, Speaker refusing to allow MPs to debate issues of national interest, and exchange of personal un-pleasantries between individual MPs.

Some MPs have made it a habit to miss proceedings, which sometimes leads to the House failing to form a quorum. As if that is not enough, our MPs have also gone down to the level of teenagers making shocking allegations in the House, and even worse, on social media.

There are reports in local media that a warrant of arrest has been issued against MP for Mogoditshane, Sedirwa Kgoroba, for posting on social media that there was a plot to assassinate president of Botswana Movement for Democracy, Ndaba Gaolathe. The allegation was made in January.

The post neither states who is behind the plot nor when such assassination is going to take place and where.

 However, it should be noted that the status of an MP in society is or is supposed to be the highest and as such, their comments are taken seriously. In his interview with the paper, Kgoroba said that he refused to talk to police officers who had paid him a visit to find out more details of the plot.  His argument was that he could only do the talking in the presence of his lawyer. That is a good argument.

However, Kgoroba is an MP who is protected by the law than any of us the lesser mortals and has absolute privilege. He enjoys special immunity to tell the nation who is behind the alleged plot, the methodologies they are going to apply, and when such assassination is going to take place. Such immunity is unchallenged when he makes the revelations in parliament.

It is against this backdrop that we urge our leaders and everybody else to use the social media properly lest we find our nation in total chaos. In South Africa recently, several individuals found themselves on the wrong side of the law after posting comments that were viewed as racist. Some officials from private companies were suspended from their jobs, whilst others were sacked.

It is our belief that all of us, including our lawmakers, should be governed by same laws. If MPs find nothing wrong with making such alarming statements, what about the young people who are excited at having all these new technologies at their disposal. Such a statement is not different from picking the phone and dialling 999 emergency line, making a bomb threat, or making a threat to kill.

Today’s thought

“You can’t believe everything people tell you - not even if those people are your own brain.”

 

–  Jefferson Smith, Strange Places