13 Jun 2016

Speaker of the National Assembly, Ms Gladys Kokorwe, says Parliament and Ntlo ya Dikgosi work together to amend and or come up with resolutions in formulation of national laws related to culture.

Ms Kokorwe was speaking during a kgotla meeting in Tonota  recently.

She said members of Ntlo ya Dikgosi were custodians of culture.

As such, their input and advice on culture issues was relevant and therefore taken into consideration.

“One core business at Parliament is to come up and implement policies that affect everyday lives of Batswana, so we work collectively with members of Ntlo ya Dikgosi on matters that involve cultural aspects,” she said.

Ms Kokorwe also indicated that dikgosi were traditional representatives who had a clear understanding of the people’s lives from a social perspective.

On other issues, Ms Kokorwe said, “we have policies that closely monitor issues such as the appropriate use of public funds allocated to different ministries as well as  12 portfolio committees that work closely with different ministries”.

In order to  enhance parliamentary operations,  Ms Kokorwe said some of the members of Parliament were often sent to other countries to benchmark.

She said MP for any given area should be seen as the intermediary between parliament and the community.

She emphasised the need for communities to work collectively with their MPs since Parliament only got to know their issues through the MP.

She also expressed the need to make use of the constituency offices by all despite different political affiliations.

“The constituency office does not belong to any specific political party and officers engaged there should also be neutral when serving out the community as we regard them as civil servants,” she said.

One of the residents, Mr Rasebola Oageng commended Ms Kokorwe for an insightful education about Parliament.

However, Mr Oageng expressed  concern about some uncalled behaviour that some members of Parliament tended to portray.

The other resident, Mr Tlhabologo Mmolawa appealed for the Constitution to be availed in Setswana for a better understanding.

Mr David Kapondoro commended the documents availed at the constituency office, however he said due to the limited  space in the office they could not seat and read the documents. ENDS