25 Jun 2015

Kgosi Maruje III Masunga says dikgosi are administrators who preside over the economy and political leaders, as such they are legislators.

Debating his motion at Ntlo ya Dikgosi, which requests government to elevate the institution of bogosi to the status commensurate with its responsibilities and relevance in governance structure of Botswana, he said 72 per cent of tribal land was presided under customary law.

He said, despite the fact that the country was run by the common law system; a lot of people in their lives were by and large affected by the tribal legal and value.

“During holidays, every Motswana goes to their respective home villages, and it’s only a few who remain in the city,” he said. Kgosi Masunga said bogosi had done well for the country for many generations, adding that they also managed to lead their tribes with peace and tranquility.

“Dikgosi had that choice to resist the transition, but we allowed change to come, but at the time when we allowed that change, we never said we must be in this situation we find ourselves in because there is scholarly view that dikgosi have become marginalised, relegated to the dust bins and bogosi is boring, all those a penned down by scholars,” he said.

Kgosi Masunga further said he was now wondering as to what government was doing about the entire allegation that bogosi has lost its power and relevance. He said what should be also be borne in mind was the fact that bogosi has contributed immensely in moulding of children in the society.

Talking about Dikgosi in the administration of justice, he said, “historically it started with the colonial government and there was a lot of literature, achieves, and heritage that has been documented and today the administration of justice still benefit from the archived material and some of them have gone on to be certain key precedence that were set at a particular time in the history of this country,” he said.

According to Kgosi Masunga, what was disheartening was that government was duplicating the process of justice and instead of empowering and developing Dikgosi, parallel structure like small claims court and stock theft unit were now put in place.

He said it looked like government did not have confidence in Dikgosi and the lack of confidence was now evident as the society also shun to be tried at the kgotla. ENDS