Botswana National Front (BNF) secretary general Ketlhalefile Motshegwa has said Parliament legislated and legalised dictatorship and erosion of democracy by allowing Constitutional Review process to proceed in the manner it did.
“These men and women who took such decision will not be forgiven by history of this country and such history will be judged harshly, generations to come with spit saliva on their graves. The process was not substantive as it is usually done. It was a “maokaneng process” where people being consulted knew next to nothing about the subject matter. This is why 67% of the proposals were out of scope and irrelevant.
“The Constitutional Review process should be framed with the “informed” opinion leaders I.e political parties, legal associations, civil society, trade unions and organized religious and social groups. These are the players handling Constitutional issues every day on behalf of individual and group rights e.g. women’s, children’s disability and indigenous rights. Political parties because of their different ideological orientations also have different models off democratisation of society. Under the so called revised constitution the President remains a “glorified chief” who is selected by a handful of his party members,” said Motshegwa.
He said Parliament is still not liberated from the dominance of the Executive.
“The chiefs whose powers were taken away and turned into token and ceremonial leaders remain marginalised and inconsequential on matters of land and community development.
“The so called revised constitution has not gone far enough in address rights of men, women, children, religious and minority rights include land and environmental security rights, etc. Electoral process is still the archaic first pass the post system or winner take all,” said Motshegwa.
On the way forward, Motshegwa called for a transformative constitution with reconfiguration of the state to bring second generation rights, democracy and societal development and progress An Act of Parliament be passed to govern the entire process.
We propose the following: Institutional set up;
-The Constitutional Review Commission (CRC),
-The Constituency Forums,
-The National Constitutional Conference (Stakeholders Conference),
-Parliament,
-The referendum,
-There be terms of reference of constitutional review
• Political will to carry genuine process of constitutional review.
-Govt must be sincere and honest
• People must participate in constitutional review. It should be people driven
• Civic education and consultations
• Transparency and inclusion
• Enough time and resources to the process
• The final product must be approved by the people at a referendum. The referendum as the final adoptive act must be issue based.
On other issues, Motshegwa said the key socio-economic challenges are unemployment, poverty and income inequalities and security, high cost of living in food, transport, housing, clothing, etc.
“Increasing corruption in the award of tenders and in the Office of President, financial indiscipline by the Government including the President. Where does the money to import costly livestock and semen come from when there are no drugs in hospitals and students don’t have books and access to reliable internet?” he said.
Further, Motshegwa said in this year’s Budget, P200 million was allocated for Chema but from nowhere the President unilaterally increased the amount to P500m and yet there are no drugs in clinics and hospitals.
“The President has just returned from a two-week long and costly public trip in the United States, something that he did again last year. Definitely no public accountability,” said Motshegwa.
Further, Motshegwa said “the government just increased salaries and allowances of top civil servants by a whopping 15 percent but refuses to increase salaries for junior officers because they claim that will increase the government deficit. Who is fooling who? Very extravagant, corrupt and Unaccountable government still wants to be re-elected.”
