20 Nov 2019

The Kgotla will continue to be a forum for community discourse and mobilisation, development planning and sustenance of peace and unity.

This was said by the curator at Khama III Memorial Museum in Serowe, Mr Scorbienorhol Lekhutile at an event organised by the Ministry of Youth, Sport and Culture in Serowe on recently. Mr Lekhutile said Botswana still had tribal leaders playing a vital role in the development of its citizens.

He noted that the kgotla had continued to be central in giving to individuals opportunity to exercise their democratic rights. 

He said when building a kgotla, the semi-circle poles usually faces where the sun rises while certain trees are used to shelter the kgotla.

Mr Lekhutile stated that each kgotla and its people together with their kgosana managed their affairs and settled disputes by arbitration involving any of its people.

He said any case that does not get resolved at the kgotlana was often referred to the main kgotla in the village. 

He said the kgotla has a fireplace where elderly members of society and headmen gather to share what they had. He said the kgotla was a traditional institution serving as a forum for policy formulation, decision-making.

‘’A council of advisers mostly from the royal family assist  kgosi and the elected cannot inherit the chieftainship as the custom is with royal chiefs. 

Some of the elected elderly wise men are chosen based on age and knowledge of community issues to assist the chiefs in the kgotla procedures,” he said.

For his part, Central District coordinator for MYSC, Mr Pako Sikuku noted that a kgotla was inclusive, allowing both royals and commoners to participate equally in decision-making at the community level. 

He said dikgosana and Dikgosi have the right to be heard and respected while participation and attendances are open to all members of the community. 

The kgotla in Botswana has played a role in promoting social integration through the immemorial use of idioms, riddles and proverbs that are embedded in Setswana culture’’, he said.

He said the idioms, riddles and proverbs encourage people to strive for good societal moral values which in a way help them to be tolerant towards each other. 

“By linking the kgotla to positive peace-building, one can already see that proverbs are used to deter people from doing bad or to put dikgosi in the position of mediating’’, he explained. 

He said there is a belief in proverbs such as molemo wa kgang ke go buiwa (dialogue is the best problem-solving mechanism) which implies that if one have wronged the other,  they have to sit down with mediators and to talk about the issue until it is resolved. Ends