BOFEPUSU to demonstrate against Parliament
Goitsemodimo Kaelo | Friday July 15, 2016 12:04
The federation’s deputy secretary general Ketlhalefile Motshegwa told Mmegi that the Speaker has consistently denied them permission to address the General Assembly on matters that affect the public. “We have made three attempts. We wrote to the Speaker in the first place and she said that she did not receive our letter. In the second attempt she said that it was late as Parliament was closing. “We wrote to her prior to the beginning of the current seating but she has kept quite. Now we can see that she is refusing us access to Parliament,” said Motshegwa.
Motshegwa said that the Speaker’s actions to deny stakeholders access to Parliament are frustrating and not living to democratic principles. He said they tried all to get access to Parliament and will have to find ways to raise public awareness on what is happening in the National Assembly. He said that the issues they wanted to enlighten Parliament on are of national concern, further noting that the House keeps passing draconian laws that negatively impact on governance and democracy. “Legislation should be used to promote peace and entrench human rights and the legislature must be effective for democracy to prosper. It is a sad period for Botswana’s democracy with Parliament that is engaged in unjust and bad legislation and at times just a rubber stamp for the fancies of the executive,” he said. Motshwegwa charged that this is emanating from authoritarian rule rather than democratic legislation where the ruling party is abusing the majority in Parliament to engage in power politics rather than value politics, to coerce legislative process to pass bad laws which is repugnant of democratic and republican politics.
“The ruling party is abusing the mandate given unto it by Batswana because certainly Batswana never meant to give the party the mandate to enact bad laws. The case in point is amendment to the Trade Dispute Act where the ruling party is making as essential service the entire civil service, amendments to the Public Service Act where the bargaining council is killed.
“All these are against the International Labour Conventions such as freedom of association and the right to organise, the right to organise and collective bargaining. This is surprising because Botswana is a member of the Governing Body of International Labour Organisation.”
The unionist said that the current speakership has taken away Parliament from the people and given the executive power over it.
He said the Speaker is oblivious to the legislative process, that to be democratic there is need for consultation and the outcome must reflect the aspirations and will of the people not the whips and caprices of rulers. He said that they addressed the opposition parliamentary caucus this week and would lobby to address other stakeholders such as Business Botswana, House of Chiefs, the ruling party parliamentary caucus, cabinet, embassies and missions in Botswana, the ILO office in Pretoria and other federations and trade unions across the world.
Efforts to get a comment from Kokorwe were unsuccessful as she was said to be in a meeting while the Public Relations office for Parliament said they were not aware of any letter from BOFEPUSU.