WHITHER BOTSWANA

DAN MOABI | Thursday April 26, 2007 00:00

Recent weeks have witnessed a national debate of unprecedented intensity on the significance of the parliamentary motion calling for the suspension of the negotiations on the privatisation of Air Botswana. Most of those who participated in the debate were of the view that the adoption of the motion obliged the government to suspend the privatisation negotiations. They argued that as a popularly elected arm of government, the National Assembly had both the right and the power to demand that the negotiations be brought to a halt. According to the Attorney General's statement, this argument is not valid.

I share the AG's view on this matter. Although I am not a lawyer, I find her arguments convincing. Apart from that, my experience of this country's system of government over the years fully corroborates the views of the AG on the Air Botswana negotiations. I know, for instance, that over its 41 years of existence, the National Assembly adopted hundreds of motions on different subjects, only a few of which were ever implemented by the various governments that the country has had. The rest of the motions were simply ignored; and I assume that this was because the governments concerned did not consider the motions to be consistent with their policies. This makes sense because under our system of government, the cabinet rather than Parliament is responsible for managing the affairs of the country. And if anything goes seriously wrong in this regard, it is the cabinet and not Parliament that takes the blame.

In view of this post-independence history of our system of government, what could be the reason for the unusually heated debate about the Air Botswana privatisation? In my view, there are two possible reasons. First, this could be a last ditch effort by the anti-privatisation lobby to prevent the privatisation of the national airline. If so, it is a misguided effort because there is really no way of justifying the continued 100 percent involvement of the government in Air Botswana. The government has more important things to do with its resources than continue to fund the loss-making national airline fully. (Incidentally, the two jets that the airline runs are probably the main reason for its loss making. The smaller aircraft that Air Botswana operates are far more suitable for its short routes than jets.)

The second possible reason for the hullabaloo about the Air Botswana privatisation is the discomfort that many people obviously have about the alleged intention to liquidate the company and do away with its name as part of the privatisation deal. I think it is perfectly understandable that people should feel so aggrieved about the possibility of their national airline losing its identity in this manner. National airlines, even small ones like Air Botswana, have a huge psychological significance to their nations. The government should therefore urge those involved in the Air Botswana privatisation negotiations to do everything they can to preserve the airline's name like those of other privatised national airlines.

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The dispute in the media between President Festus Mogae and those parliamentarians who criticised and called for amendments to the judges' pensions Bill is most unfortunate. The confrontation is simply undignified for people of their calibre. It all started at a recent meeting of the ruling Botswana Democratic Party's Women's League, which the President was invited to address. In his speech (the relevant part of which was shown on Btv) President Mogae accused the MPs of having tried to blackmail his government to promise to review their salaries so that they could, in turn, support the pensions Bill.
This has infuriated the MPs, who have denied the President's accusation and challenged him to reveal the source of his information. I closely followed media reports about the parliamentary debate on the proposed judges pensions; and to be fair to the MPs, I do not recall ever coming across anything about the alleged attempted blackmail. Besides, this is certainly not the kind of issue that the media could have missed. It would have been reported immediately, and the public would have received the news with considerable anger.

It is clear, therefore, that the matter needs to be resolved urgently and amicably. Naturally, the government is very upset and embarrassed about the recent resolve of its backbenchers and the opposition MPs to criticise and vigorously oppose a number of its legislative proposals. But this is what should happen in a democratically elected legislature. In any case, the display of such anger (and apparent vengeance) by the government is bound to make its relations with its backbenchers even more difficult.