The Jwaneng-Mabutsane MP, Mephato Reatile, has lamented what seems to be entrenched “culture” at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to snub Members of Parliament. Reatile made this lamentation when the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Dr. Gladys Mokhawa, appeared before the parliamentary Public Accounts Committee during a hearing that he was chairing.
“It’s not about your good self but a culture at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs – they don’t want to interact with politicians,” he said, adding later that in the many years (eight) that he has been an MP, he has never once interacted with Ministry officials within a work setting.
With regard to the latter point, he gave an example of someone (Pono Moatlhodi of Tonota) who has served as MP for a much longer period of time – 18 years – but has also not interacted with Ministry officials.
Reatile said that before the outbreak of Covid-19, it was customary for ministries (he cited that of Agriculture) to periodically convene dipitso (grand assemblies) and invite MPs to share their thoughts on the work of such ministries. Likewise, at the beginning of each parliament, the finance ministry hosts a meet-and-greet session for new MPs and uses this opportunity to establish common ground with MPs on what their role is with regard to their custodianship of state coffers.
Each one of the parliamentary committees has a secretariat staffed with National Assembly employees. Reatile said that what passed for a working relationship between MPs and the Ministry of Affairs officials was minimal engagement with secretariat staff. Having thus gleaned some foreign affairs knowledge from Ministry officials, secretariat staff passes on such knowledge to MPs and generally act as their guides on international trips. Reatile lamented that never once has the Ministry seen it fit to train these staff members on issues of international affairs in order that they can provide better guidance to their MP principals.
Reatile’s comments are interesting in another dimension. Within the Government Enclave itself, some feel that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs functions as an island unto itself and that a good many of its globe-trotting employees have personally constructed an arbitrary pecking order that places them above all other civil servants on the basis of the many and substantial privileges that they enjoy. A Deputy Director uses the Setswana equivalent of “stuck up” to describe most of the Foreign Affairs officials that she has interacted with both at a professional and personal level. The merciful view though, one expressed by a Permanent Secretary, is that the work that this ministry does naturally brings its officials into minimal contact with the rest of the civil service.
Reatile was making his point within the broader context of Botswana’s MPs being outclassed by their peers when they attend international meetings. By way of example, he said that when issues such as the independence of Western Sahara and Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories are debated, MPs from other countries are able to competently articulate the policy positions their respective countries have taken.
“But in Botswana issues of foreign affairs are confidential,” said Reatile, using, in reference to “confidential”, the Setswana idiomatic phrase “phithela kgomo ya serotswana.”
In the circumstances, Botswana MPs are all too often reduced to regurgitating the general and insubstantial position that they would have chanced upon in the media. Reatile warned that the danger of what currently obtains is that an MP attending an international meeting outside Botswana might unwittingly express a position that contradicts one the official one.
Prior to her Foreign Affairs job, Mokhawa worked as a lecturer at the University of Botswana where she taught international relations. At the hearing, Reatile revealed that there was a long-standing arrangement in terms of which Mokhawa schooled MPs on pertinent international relations issues. Reatile made this revelation to query why given this history and that she was now in charge, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs continued to operate like a veritable secret society and one that continues to keep MPs in the dark on issues they should be enlightened on. He warned that this state of affairs could well result in a situation in which she gets a telephone call at two in the morning and is informed that “your MP embarrassed us” by deviating from official Botswana policy of international affairs.
Mokhawa began her response by conceding the MP’s point and acknowledging that the Ministry has realised the problem that he had described. She explained that by way of resolving the problem, the Ministry has developed a public diplomacy strategy and training master plan. The strategy entails guest spots on radio stations and special features in print media to explain Botswana’s the ministry’s role as well as its decision-making processes on foreign policy issues. Through the training plan, the Ministry will train “all agencies”, including MPs and ministers as well as the nation at large. Mokhawa also revealed that the ministry plans to write down and distribute Botswana’s policy positions on issues of international affairs. She added that the latter would be particularly useful for MPs who, as diplomats, attend international meetings where they represent Botswana.
Perhaps the starkest illustration of the problem that Reatile complained about was a question from another Committee member (Bobonong MP, Taolo Lucas) who asked what Botswana’s position was on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Using typically guarded diplomatic language (slipping only once when she derided “atrocities” committed by Russian forces) Mokhawa said that Botswana believes in peaceful co-existence between countries. She noted that while Botswana has diplomatic relations with both countries, it had renounced Russia’s invasion through its United Nations votes.
After the invasion, which Russia’s president, Vladimir Putin, has described as “a special military operation”, Botswana voted with other countries condemning this act of aggression. Subsequent to that, Botswana and 56 other countries abstained when the United Nations General Assembly voted to suspend Russia from the Human Rights Council. Prior to the latter vote, Russia circulated a note that read in part: “It is worth mentioning that not only support for such an initiative, but also an equidistant position in the vote (abstention or non-participation) will be considered as an unfriendly gesture. The position of each country will be taken into account both in the development of bilateral relations and in the work on the issues important for it within the framework of the U.N.”
Botswana-Russia relationship goes back to 1970 when the embassy of the Soviet Union and the High Commission of Botswana in London exchanged notes. In 1976, Russia opened an embassy in Gaborone while Botswana covers Russia from its embassy in Sweden and also has an honorary consulate in Moscow. Mokhawa lamented the humanitarian situation that the war has brought and expressed hope that a peaceful resolution to the conflict could be found soon. She added that save for one person, all Batswana have managed to get out of Ukraine. The one who stayed behind did so of his own volition, she said.
The Foreign Affairs PS also revealed that the Ministry is crafting the country’s foreign policy. Going back to the administration of President Sir Seretse Khama, Botswana has never had such policy. The result was that to all intents and purposes, the thinking of the sitting president’s became foreign policy.
