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MPS WRONG ABOUT CMAC

01/04/2019 08:14:00 Vusi Sibisi

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Perhaps it would be expecting too much of our lawmakers to be men and women of letters and scholarship but we still expect the minimum in terms of intellect and comprehension of issues not to be at the sub-level of idiocy such as that which has been abroad since the so-called honourable ones took their positions in Parliament.

No, I am past the uncontested passage of the Appropriation Bill, sad as it may have been without as much as a whimper, by Members of Parliament (MPs) in the House of Assembly. As with the beginning of every business of the year, after the tabling of the proposed budget, as part of their oversight role MPs are thereafter required to scrutinise the annual performance reports of the various portfolios and their departments. It is at this post-elections stage initially that the public, indeed the electorate, have a window into the intellect and capacity of their elected representatives.

The prevailing system would have you believe that its virtue is in that the people elect individuals on merit, on the basis of intimate knowledge thereof. That is one of many fables that are routinely mouthed by architects and apologists of the Tinkhundla political system in a vain attempt to market it as a democratic and credible system. After all, how are voters expected to intimately know their candidates when the very system does not allow them free political activism? Yes, in pluralistic dispensations, such as in multiparty democracies, political parties routinely hold rallies through which they mobilise support and identify suitable leaders based on their characters, abilities and potential, and nurtured. And when elections come, the people already know who to vote for ostensibly because they know what to expect in terms of performance from the choices they make.

As I see it, it would appear that some of the so-called honourable ones believe that it is infantile noise making that makes them formidable and most endearing politicians - pass as development extension officers under the prevailing hegemony - to the electorate. To them it matters very little if there is no substance in the noise making just as long as they have heard their own voices. So they carry into the hallowed legislative chambers all their prejudices and emotional baggage. Not just that, often MPs abuse the spaces provided by the sanctity of Parliament that insulate them from litigation on their utterances, often to further their personal and private objectives.

Having read about and heard proceedings as MPs attempted to earn their upkeep, I could not help but notice an apparent lack of objectivity whenever they opened their mouths. There was the instance when they went on overdrive in their zealous condemnation of the Conciliation, Mediation and Arbitration Commission (CMAC). But when one synthesised the affronts they were found to be baseless. Baseless since they criticised CMAC, a creature of statute, of being toothless when pursuing its mandate. Had they undertaken a cursory research on the relevant legislative framework, the MPs would have discovered that it was they, legislators, who emasculated CMAC when enacting the enabling legislation. In the event, MPs should have lambasted the shortcomings of the law and not the men and women who do their utmost best in the face of scarce resources and a not so conducive environment occasioned by the limitations and prejudices of the very lawmakers.

Also evident in some of the debates and inputs in the Legislature are personalised issues in which lawmakers use their privileged positions to either attack their detractors or promote their personal causes or those of their supporters and benefactors. They have the habit of taking petty and trivial issues off the streets and turn them into serious matters inside the hallowed legislative chambers when these should have been better left where they belong, the rubbish bin. Only when lawmakers respect themselves and their office, not to speak of Parliament, can they expect to be taken seriously by some of us. And so far that remains a hard call since very few of them are worth any respect. Then there is that small matter of one compatriot, Thulani Mkhonto who had to answer to the DPM about what he had penned about rape on his Facebook space. For yours truly, that episode spoke of the need to mount civic education on the Constitution and constitutionalism.

The Constitution embraces a Bill of Rights among which is freedom of expression. And freedom of expression is not necessarily about saying things to which society in general is agreeable. Offensive what Mkhonto wrote it may have been, but no one has the authority to dictate to him what to say and how to feel about certain issues. He has every right to express his personal opinion on anything. Personally, I do not agree to what he wrote, which is indeed offensive, but would protect to death his right to say it.
All things considered, can government be trusted to properly manage donations, especially cash donations, for the victims of Cyclone Idai in Mozambique? Knowing government’s moral deficit this task should have been left in the able hands of non-governmental organisations. By the way government’s mobilising of traditional leadership like chiefs is hopefully not meant to force donations out of poverty ravaged emaSwati.