BLLAWHU is walking towards self-destruction
Correspondent | Wednesday May 18, 2016 15:49
Today members are leaving the union in droves because they see no reason why they should keep their membership of a union that has lost direction, vigor and dignity..
Several reasons are cited for the ensuing exodus of members. Some say the Union no longer represents their interests but those of political parties. While others say that the leadership has turned the Union into their personal property and is unable to account for its finances given that the Central Executive Committee (CEC) has failed to present audited books in several congresses.
The other reason is that the CEC is ineffective and under the strict control of the Secretary General. It is said that the man is a puppet master and has the entire committee on a string and plays them like puppets. The fear factor for the CEC members is that deviation may see one kicked out of the Committee the same way that Sam Kedise who was a popularly voted President and Yarobi Motswaiso the Treasurer General ceased to be members of the CEC.
Yet chief among the reasons is the current war that the CEC has declared against BLLAHWU Burial Society (BBS). What started the spite was a fairly simple matter; a fact. BBS told CEC that it was an independent entity duly registered under the Societies Act and run by a democratically elected Management Committee. It never said it was not part of the Union. The fact was stated within a context whereby the CEC wanted to take control of the BBS because it said some congress of the Union had resolved that it should do so. Therefore, BBS Management Committee felt duty bound to tell CEC that it was the only Committee constitutionally mandated to run the Society through decisions made by its Annual General Meetings. As a result the CEC was irritated by what it obviously saw as insolence rather than the plain truth it was.
What followed afterwards was a crusade to destroy the Society. The banner was that BBS has declared itself to be an independent entity that did not belong to the union. It was called a child that had disowned its mother. BBS management was called arrogant and cheeky. They were vilified at every twist and turn. The purpose was evident; to make members of the Union hate BBS. Ridiculous and unreasonable as this may seem, but those familiar with the mondus operandi will tell you of how Kedise and Motswaiso’s lives were cut short within the CEC because they challenged and disagreed with certain decisions concerning the Secretary General.
Now BBS had to be destroyed because it refused to allow itself to be controlled by a structure that neither had the legal nor political standing to do so. To worsen the circumstances, it was also a structure that had been running the Union with a deficit budget and had failed to account for its finances for donkey years. The question here then becomes what reasonable man can allow such people to take control of funds that are to be used for dignified burials of members and their beloved ones? This was another area of apprehension for BBS Management Committee and so they found that they could not hand over the keys to the vault.
Subsequently, as it may be expected, BLLAWHU Funeral Scheme was created under the auspices of Mokaulengwe; a parallel funeral Scheme within the Union intended to bring an end to BBS.
Mokaulengwe is a Trade Name for a company called Tsagae which has the Secretary General as its sole Director. He is also named in the company papers as the only representative of the Union. Prior to the Palapye BLLAWHU Annual General Meeting, the CEC slapped BBS with court papers demanding P4.5 million as payment on the claim that the society has been profiting from the name of the Union. Here again the question arises on whose interests is the CEC acting because members of BLLAWHU are also members of BBS. If you cripple BBS you hurt members of the Union. So the actions of the CEC have alienated members of BBS. They feel unwanted and many are beginning to resign from the Union.
A question has been asked by some members during the Union’s 2015 Governing Council in Francistown and again at the BBS Phikwe Annual General Meeting; by creating a parallel funeral scheme is the CEC suggesting that BBS should form its own Trade Union because that seems to be the logic at play? Hence it can be concluded that the BLLAWHU CEC is divisive; a matter that is not altogether foreign in their thinking. It is the reason why in sports the Union has two parallel structures BLLASA and LAHISA.
The CEC has been addressing meetings in the Union branches across the country attacking BBS and extolling their newly born baby; BLLAHWU Funeral Fund. What they failed to do was to tell people certain simple truths which are that the matter at hand was not that the CEC should control BBS but how the Society should report to the Committee and that in December 2015 the two parties met and resoled to bury the hatchet and work together in harmony going forward.
However, the CEC reneged on the resolution and instead served the Society with summons. The CEC actually did that on the day that it should have signed a joint press statement with BBS telling the nation about the resolution to end their differences.
BLLAHWU is now at crossroads. It has to choose between a path of unity and that of division. The current CEC has made itself crystal clear. It does not care at all about its members who are also members of BBS. It does not care that their court action may result in them losing on their investment in BBS. The CEC is acting in this way inspite of the fact that BBS has grown its portfolio over the years to 9.5 million Pula, has never failed to honour a claim and presents audited books of accounts each year without fail.
In short BBS is delivering on its mandate which is to ensure that members and their beloved ones are buried in dignity. BBS is continually improving benefits to members. So then what is all this want for control about? Word echoing within the rank and file of the Union is that some people in the top leadership are looking to make themselves rich in order to emulate their counterparts in other Unions.
The ball is in the court of members of BLLAWHU. They have to vote for people who can stir the Union back to its course in the coming elective congress in December if it does take place.
In the past the CEC has postponed congresses and held constitutional meetings outside the given periods. Still, if it does take place, members have to be wise and remember that it was under the watch of the current leadership that we lost everything that the Union owned under BLLAHWHU Group of Companies and that no proper explanation was ever tendered as to what happened to our property; Every investment that we had simply vanished into thin air without an explanation. Even with such a situation, the CEC has the audacity to pour their ill will on the only structure of the Union that still preserves the pride and dignity that BULGSA espoused.
BLLAHWU Burial Society is the rock upon which our Union should be rebuilt. Anything else will lead BLLAHWU further into the path of self-destruction.
Bolf Mohutsiwa
BLLAHWU MEMBER