Are trade unions going to have to seek audience with sub-committees of the National Executive Committee of the ruling Botswana Democratic Party when they fail to bend the ear of the president or relevant ministers? After all, such committee members don’t have to struggle for months, even years on end, to gain access to corridors of official executive power. That appears to have been the reasoning of the Botswana Transport and General Workers Union (BGTWU) when it was all but snubbed by President Mokgweetsi Masisi and two of his transport ministers and resorted to lobbying a BDP structure.
For five years now, the BTGWU has been desperately and unsuccessfully trying to meet ministers in charge of transport, first Thulagano Segokgo and later Eric Molale but to no avail. In November 19, 2019, when the transport ministry was under Segokgo’s stewardship, the Union sought “an urgent meeting with yourself” but this request got nowhere. Two years later and with no improvement in the situation, what a BTGWU letter describes as “an unannounced short meeting with yourself” took place. At that meeting, the two parties agreed that Union leaders should make a formal request for a scheduled meeting.
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