Parliament must be commended for the creation of the Parliament Committee on Statutory Bodies (PCSB).
Although it might sound a little too early to sing praises for the establishment of this relatively new committee, we have noted that this committee seems to mean serious business.
That optimism is drawn from the fact that the PSCB, unless the executive shoots it down, has begun examining State Corporations. Added to this, there are plans by the PSCB to further leverage the examinations process in the next year, by conducting hearings in public, where members of the public and media houses will be allowed to hear first hand, the conduct of the operations and management of State Corporations.
This is a welcome development, which should nurture democracy and instill in the truest sense of the word good governance that Botswana is often praised for by international bodies, whom it would appear, are only interested in the existence of oversight institutions in name but not in deed.
To quote the chairman of the PCSB, MP Robert Masitara, “While some of our State Corporations have generally been compliant in terms of statutory compliance such as the submission to Government and to Parliament of financial statements and audit reports amongst others, it is regrettable to say that, with some of our Corporations, grave and glaring areas of non-compliance are emerging some of which appear to have been perpetrated even over inordinate periods of time, seemingly without notice”.
May we add that there are also some parastatals which, it has emerged even before the courts, are not transparent in the issuance of tenders. Before an observation was made by the courts, a few months ago, the chairperson of the Public Procurement and Asset Disposal Board rang warning bells that some state funded institutions were not following the rules and procedures governing public procurement.
It is, therefore, a welcome development that State Corporations’ activities are being subjected to direct Parliamentary scrutiny, a function that was previously executed through Government Ministries and Chief Accounting Officers by the Parliamentary Public Accounts Committee.
There can be no doubt hundreds of millions of pula from the government kitty, or better still, the taxpayers’ coffers go into ambitious development projects, the funds┬áwhich ought to be monitored that they have been put to good use for the benefit of us all.┬á
The examination process is carried out by the hearing of evidence from witnesses summoned to appear before the Committee, pursuant to the powers vested in the Committee in terms of the provisions of the National Assembly (Powers and Privileges) Act.
In terms of the Act, the PCSB may summon any persons to appear before it or call for any documents or papers to be submitted to it. The willful failure to answer to the committee’s summons attracts the censure of the law, in terms of the provisions of the Act as it would constitute contempt to Parliament.
The legislators, who currently are members of this important committee, we encourage, should use their next step of a journey of a thousand miles to also convince parliament, the executive in particular, that the time is nigh for other oversight institutions to be accountable to parliament.  That is if parliament ceases to be the rubber stamp institution of the executive.
It cannot be right for an oversight institution such as the Directorate on Corruption and Economic Crime, for instance, to be accountable to a minister, a political appointee overseeing its function while that particular minister might be facing corruption allegations. Some politicians, as we all know, together with top civil servants and chief executive officers of our parastatals, at times find it irresistible to dip their fingers into the nation’s coffers.
