Member of Parliament for Mogoditshane Sedirwa Kgoroba’s intention to bring a Private Members Bill in Parliament seeking to force Government to take care of people leaving with disabilities and their caretakers is unlikely to see light of the day as Attorney General is unwilling to assist in drafting the Bill.
The Mogoditshane legislator has been working on his private members Bill since February.
Kgoroba said drafting a Bill is one of those highly specialised areas and there are those within the legal fraternity who specialise on drafting Bills.
“It is not every Jack and Jill from the legal fraternity who can draft a Bill. As members of the back bench we have at our disposal the Attorney Generals to offer us that service and the other option is that of those in private practice. I am a lay man and in my lay man’s view drafting has to do with mostly if not wholly with legislative matters which then means those drafters out there in private practice wholly depend on government,” he said.
He has updated the leadership of Umbrella for Democratic Change about the challenge he is faced with and his party is even aware that Kgoroba has resorted in seeking help from outside the country to help draft his Bill.
The party has given his move a blessing.
Kgoroba said his idea of coming up with such a Bill was influenced by situations he came across when he was campaigning for political office in 2014.
“When you are campaigning for political office, you go house to house and you meet different people – rich and poor people, people with disabilities and any other kind of people one can come across. Of these groups of people it is clear that government has neglected people leaving with disabilities and that touched my heart hence what this Bill,” said Kgoroba.
He emphasized that Government is doing nothing for people leaving with disabilities. “We have a population of just over two million and I do not think those who are disabled exceed 300. It’s very costly to maintain severely disabled person and families should be assisted. It’s not only about the affected victim this Bill is also saying government should pay the care takers as well because most of the time people leaving with disabilities are from poorer families.”
He said Members of Parliament in the opposition are faced with a challenge of accessing help from government whenever they need one. He says this is so because the regime arrogantly blacks out anything and everything that has to do with members of the opposition.
“Certainly any person who is under the employ of this regime cannot whatsoever even think of assisting a member of the opposition with something like drafting a Bill,” he said.
