01 Mar 2023

 Parliament has approved P187 160 240 for the National Assembly’s recurrent and development budget for the 2023/2024 financial year.

Presenting the budget estimates, Assistant Minister for State President, Mr Dumezweni Mthimkhulu said the budget constituted P174 360 240 and P12.8 million for the recurrent and development budget respectively.

Mr Mthimkhulu said the budget represented an increase of P11 493 820 above the 2022/2023 financial year’s allocation, which he said was realised from personal emoluments and operating costs, especially for travel votes and rentals for constituency offices.

“The largest proportion of this recurrent budget is allocated to personnel emoluments at 69 per cent of the budget, which amounts P119 683 460, while the remaining 31 per cent, which amounts to P54 676 780 is allocated to other operational costs of Parliament,” he said.

He said the larger share of the proposed budget of P164 595 180, which represented 94 per cent was allocated to the National Assembly while P9 765 060 or six per cent was allocated to Ntlo Ya Dikgosi.

For the 2023/2024 financial year, he said the P12.8 million for the National Assembly was a decrease of P6 110 090 or 32 per cent below the P18 910 090 provided for the 2022/2023 financial year.

Earlier in his comments, Member of Parliament for Nata/Gweta, Mr Polson Majaga expressed concern that Parliament was always allocated low funds despite it being considered the third arm of government, saying that hampered some of its activities such as the functions of parliamentary committees.

“This is despite that some ministries that always got larger amounts than Parliament are always returning funds.

I believe at least P250 million would have sufficed.

This would also enable parliamentary committees to function because most of them cannot even travel on duty due to shortage of funds,” he said.

For his part, Letlhakeng/Lephepe MP, Mr Liakat Kablay was concerned about the security at the parliamentary village and requested that it be beefed.

The legislator, however, appreciated the Botswana Speaks initiative, which he said managed to educate Batswana on the roles on Parliament and MPs, as well as making it easier to contact ministers.

“There is, however, still a need to train officers rolling out the initiative,” he said.

Mr Kablay also called for an allowance for constituency officers as he said they were often forced to fork from their own pockets to perform government duties.

MP for Bobonong, Mr Taolo Lucassaid Parliament was being treated as if it was a department under the Office of the President.

“We are also concerned by the tendency to make decisions affecting Parliament without informing legislators, one example being the decision to beam Parliament proceedings in a channel that is not accessible to many Batswana,” he said.

Mr Lucas also suggested that there be a budget dedicated to running constituency offices as well as beefing of staff even at Parliament, which he said was at some point running at 25 per cent staff complement.

Responding to MPs’ comments, Mr Mthimkhulu said although their concerns were genuine, it should also be noted that government was operating under a tight budget.

“This is also the case with other ministries and not just Parliament.

It would be amiss for Parliament to get a larger share than ministries that are more close to the people that you represent,” he said.

Mr Mthimkhulu also said the constituency allowance was meant to assist MPs to run some of the activities at their constituencies.

He also told MPs that security at the parliamentary village was currently being upgraded. ENDS