The third winter meeting runs from July to August and the focus of this meeting will be to consider Bills and Committee Reports. Speaking of focus, before the holidays, Boko reiterated in various Kgotla meetings across the country that legislators should focus on making life-changing laws rather than asking trivial questions in Parliament. Most of the legislators are new to Parliament, and the winter meeting will be their first after the Umbrella for Democratic Change's (UDC) historic win at the polls last October. The Members of Parliament (MPs) have already experienced the first meeting, which ran from November to December.
The meeting, which began with the State of the Nation Address by President Boko, was the official opening of the 13th Parliament. The legislators are fresh from the second meeting (Budget Meeting), which ran from February to April. The latter started with the Budget Speech presented by Minister of Finance Ndaba Gaolathe. It is now clear that Boko wasn't impressed by MPs in the last two sessions, so it's no wonder he reiterated his remarks from March that the legislators are showboating instead of passing laws. “Your job is to make laws; when you make laws, you bind the Executive,” Boko said, adding that he doesn’t understand how MPs can bring trivial questions about broken windows to Parliament when they can easily solve that problem. Boko indicated before the holidays that he served as an MP for Gaborone Bonnington North between 2014 and 2019, but he never asked a single question. As he echoed his opinion about questions in Parliament, it is clear that Boko feels that the 13th Parliament MPs haven't hit the ground running. He said even some of them had admitted to asking trivial questions to please their constituents. Defending their questions, MPs emphasised in the just-ended budget meeting argued that the questions they bring to Parliament are concerns from the electorate. Whilst Boko pressures MPs to pass laws that can make his job easier, legislators from the opposition bloc said Boko is the last person to talk about bills because he never brought or passed any as a legislator. They said instead of being too hard on some of the rookie MPs, the President should lead his Cabinet ministers to bring in bills so that the 13th Parliamentarians can debate and pass them.
Government Bills are brought to Parliament by ministers as opposed to private members' bills, which are brought to the house by MPs who don't have any ministerial portfolio. The main opposition party, Botswana Congress Party (BCP), has already made its commitments for the winter parliamentary session. BCP recently revealed that the majority of their MPs are currently working on bills for the next session. The Speaker of the National Assembly, Dithapelo Keorapetse, recently called on MPs to be proactive in enacting laws that promote the economic empowerment of citizens, creating an enabling environment for sustainable job creation, entrepreneurship, and skills development. Speaking at the 150th Inter-Parliamentary Union (IPU) assembly in Uzbekistan, Keorapetse said parliaments are the voice of the people, and hold the sacred responsibility of championing policies and legislation to uplift the lives of all citizens, especially the most vulnerable.
