Botswana Federation of Public Sector Unions (BOFEPUSU) has dissociated itself from its President Masego Mogwera who recently issued a statement that BOFEPUSU was not aligned with any political formation. A statement which is to be officially issued by BOFEPUSU affiliates namely: Botswana Landboards and Local Authorities Workers Union (BLLAWU); Botswana Public Employees Union (BOPEU); Botswana Sector of Educators Union (BOSETU); Botswana Teachers Union (BTU) and National Amalgamated Local Central Government and Parastatal Workers Union (NALCGPWU) following last week’s emergency meeting denounces the earlier statement by Mogwera.
According to the statement signed by the federation Secretary General, Tobokani Rari, “the federation is of the view that all affiliates except for Botswana Public Employees Union (BOPEU) were in agreement that there is a valid and binding resolution which calls for BOFEPUSU to support the Umbrella for Democratic Change (UDC). “BOPEU were of the view that the congress of BOFEPUSU has never resolved to support the UDC, whilst the rest of the affiliates expressed the view that the conduct of the leadership of BOFEPUSU in assisting in the formation of UDC was consistent with such resolution,” Rari said in his statement. Rari said other affiliates also resolved to continue to lobby, persuade and cajole BOPEU and Mogwera to refrain from engaging in any conduct that undermines the resolution. In an earlier statement issued last week, Mogwera claimed that it was resolved that the federation was not going to align itself with any political formation saying the resolution was informed by the recognition that it is a mass movement with a broad base of people coming from different political orientations.
“It was going to be difficult for BOFEPUSU to align with a political party without infringing on our members rights to associate with an organisation of their choice. I must state that it was never a resolution of BOFEPUSU to support any political party, let alone the UDC,” Mogwera said in her statement. Mogwera also dismissed the federation hit list, “lately we saw in newspapers that Dumelang Saleshando has been included in the BOFEPUSU hit list, we have no such list and we have no reason to include Dumelang Saleshando in the purported list. To the fullest of my knowledge no member of the federation central committee has been mandated to make such statements, which statements have the potential to destabilize the federation,” said Mogwera.
Asked to comment on the agreement of the Thursday meeting, the federation president Mogwera said she was not part and not aware of the said meeting. “The only meeting I was aware of is the meeting that was called by our legal advisors to give an update on the federation cases, I learnt that after the legal advisors meeting, Rari, Motshwarakgole and Molaodi convened to make that statement,” she said. Mogwera emphasized that the statement signed by her secretary general was invalid because it was never a decision by the federation executive committee.
“I was not there and my vice president was not there, they did not even form a quorum. BOFEPUSU is governed by 2012 resolution of non partisan and as far as I know we never met after the 2012 congress to change that resolution, they must state where the resolution they are talking about was decided. Out of the 12 members of the executive, I can only say it is unconstitutional for Rari to be saying BOFEPUSU executive met,” she said.
