For those who may not know. The opposition members of parliament walked out of the general assembly today in protest to the unfair and undemocratic dominance of the BDP on parliamentary committees. Parliament has committees which are constituted by the back bench only. The back bench is those members of parliament who are not in cabinet. As things stand now the BDP has fifteen members in the back bench whereas the opposition has 20 members. There are twenty three parliamentary committees and one must also indicate that the powers of these committees lie on the chairperson. Of the twenty three the BDP 15 members each participates in a minimum of 7 committees whereas members of the opposition participate in not more than 2 committees. Therefore this means that the BDP back bench dominates in numbers in all the committees thus won chairmanship of 21 of the committees through a bogus majority. What this means is since meetings for these committees take place at the same time there will be times when some committees will fail to raise a quorum since the BDP members will be outstretched. Secondly these committees are supposed to provide oversight but since the power of these committees rests on the BDP bogus majority and bogus chairmanship powers these committees will not hold government and the executive accountable since it is still an extension of the BDP. The opposition members have therefore resolved to withdraw their participation in these committees and leave them to the 15 member BDP back bench to execute the duties alone since our participation will be an endorsement of the BDP will and whim and not that of the legislature nor contribution or input of the opposition. Thus we will not allow ourselves to be used to rubber stamp the BDP agenda hidden under a bogus democratic dispensation. I must also say that our participation in these committees will give a public impression that we are endorsing whatever resolution will come out through these committees and we say no to that. If the BDp is content in overseeing itself than they should not and we will not allow them to use us as a scapegoat. By: Sedirwa Kgoroba Member of Parliemant For Mogoditshane.
Posted on: Thu, 04 Dec 2014 16:09:58 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015