It's Your Choice - Masisi
Innocent Selatlhwa | Monday June 10, 2019 18:00
He even went on to attack a teacher in Serowe for raising such a question on the matter. For a long time Masisi tried to keep the storm contained.
Just recently before he left for United States of America, he said: “Ke tloga ke phantsha”. It seems like this was more than just a threat. He started spilling the beans as soon as he landed from the US.
Masisi told a media briefing at the State House that he knew that Khama would cause problems before he even stepped down as president.
“You must ask members of the Central Committee how the last meeting Khama presided over went. It was that one where he said he is still the head of the party until 2019,” he said of Khama.
“This is following a sequence of all indicators of what we are seeing now. He wanted to be the face of the party going into the elections. He would be the chief campaigner.”
Masisi said he regretted the law they passed in Parliament amending for former presidents being allowed to work.
“I was the leader of the house in 2017 when we amended the Former President Pension and Benefits Act.
The opposition mercilessly accused us and we rebutted the accusations. I take my hat off to the opposition and I owe you and the opposition an apology. We made a mistake and it is sad. But we will tell you the truth as it is. We never thought it would be like this.” “There was a critical point in the old law that a former president will not be allowed to work and that if they worked, they would risk forfeiting their benefits.
Work should not be understood in a literal sense, which is the mistake we made in 2017. We believed that when one is allowed to work he would not support or distabilise government. In relation to former presidents, work does not mean eight-to-five; work is influence. That was put there to contain a very powerful person when he retires.”
“Come October, you can choose to live like you lived. I am comfortable with it because it is your choice to make. Or you can choose to go forward. You can choose to make our nation beneath what we are worth in terms of credibility.”
Masisi said if they still had the leverage, they could be taking away all of Khama’s benefits or stop him engaging in politics again because he has retired.
He said he sometimes does not allow Khama to use airplanes because his trips were not as important as government work that needs to be done.