Parly committees doing a good job but...
Mmegi Editor | Friday September 23, 2016 11:02
However, the work of the parliamentary select committees cannot go unrecognised especially the Public Accounts Committee, and the Committee on Statutory Bodies and State Enterprises (CSBSE).
Recent revelations at the aforementioned committees are a clear indication that there is a lot that needs to be done in terms of tightening our laws, policies, control measures and processes.
Our laws need to draw a clear line between corporate governance and political interference to ensure that the principle of Separation of Powers applies at all times. The architects of this rule had foreseen a situation where politicians would want to overrule and dominate activities of other institutions either to benefit themselves, their friends or their egos. At the ongoing CSBSE sitting, we learned how ministers disregard the rules of good corporate governance to a point where they want to perform the duties of the general manager, whilst in one incident a very crucial organisation has operated for almost a year without a board of directors.
The minister’s explanation was that he was still looking for ‘suitable’ candidates. Meanwhile, he has performed the duty of the board and management. The taxpayer was kept in the dark about the ‘excuse’ that there are no Batswana qualified to sit in the Botswana Tourism Organisation.
The same excuse was used about four years ago when an invisible group of people tried to kill Botswana Meat Commission when they said there were no qualified Batswana to manage the national abattoir.
This is unacceptable and we strongly condemn it with all possible terms.
Our position is, these acts are a perfect example of abuse of office by those in power. What is disturbing is that the committee investigating these parastatals is toothless and cannot take action against these ministers or make recommendation for their further investigation and subsequent prosecution. These ministers do all these things knowing that our laws are weak and they will not be held accountable by anybody.
Of course it will be a daunting task, beating the majority ruling party, but our legislators should strive for laws that hold everyone accountable, including ministers.
Furthermore, the committees should be empowered to make recommendations for further investigation and possible prosecution of non-compliant political leaders.
Without such laws in place, our committees will continue to uncover unethical conduct by our political leaders year after year without any of them having their day in court, or having their day in court only as a charade.
Today’s thought
“To assume all the powers is not good for anybody. Power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely. All those experiments have a bad ending”.
– Rafael Correa