Ntlo ya Dikgosi should be our House of Lords
Friday, June 26, 2015
Kgosi Khama draping Kgosi Kgafela with a legendary leopard skin
We use the First-Past-the-Post electoral system, which allows the party with majority elected members to automatically take government. Assuming power is irrespective of the percentage of voters the majority party gets, as all it needs is 50 percent of the seats in Parliament.
The Westminster system has the House of Commons, an equivalent of Botswana’s House of National Assembly, or Parliament. Our colonial masters also have the House of Lords, which in our case, could be the Ntlo ya Dikgosi, which was for a long time before indigenising the name in the early 2000s was known as House of Chiefs.
That sounds like good news. But the report also warns that this may simply be because our digital economy is still young, not because we are safe. As more people shop, bank and pay online, criminals will follow.We Batswana do not need a report to tell us that danger is real. Many of us have heard of or fallen victim to KYC scams. A caller impersonates your bank or mobile money provider. They say they need to “verify” your account. They ask...