Times Of Swaziland: WHO IS TO BLAME?

WHO IS TO BLAME?
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By Vusi Kunene on 12/10/2017 00:22:00


LOOKING at the manner that services are delivered in the country and some of the
recent happenings, I thought who is to blame for the whole mess?
We complain about non-availability of drugs in hospital, closure of learning
institution, bad roads, and non-provision for increase in salaries for civil
servants, meagre amounts given to the elders as an allowance, laws not being
passed, security forces enjoying a large share of the budget, and so on. Is a
person or institution to blame for all these problems?
The drama with the Sexual Offences and Domestic Violence Bill (SODV Bill),
however, took me to another level of thinking about the problems. Our parliament
is sick. But why? Where on earth will a chairperson of portfolio committee
decide to go against the decision of the committee and remove clauses in a Bill
that is to be debated in Parliament? Is the chairperson aware of his duties and
what he has powers to do and what powers he does not have? It was not surprising
to me that the chairperson had difficulty to even motivate his own motion.
When you try to do something that you know is wrong and not supposed to be done
but you are forced to do so because you are pleasing someone, then you will have
such problems. You have no conviction in what you are submitting but you are
just doing it for the sake of pleasing someone.
I then wondered why was the chairperson doing this and my thinking took me to
the Constitution to try and respond to the question and I realised that we will
be blaming the sick Parliament yet the Constitution is also not giving the
people the power and therefore the parliamentarians are to please whoever they
want to please.
I will start with the Cabinet where the laws are crafted and should be
implemented. Section 69 (2) provides that Cabinet is responsible to Parliament
and not the people. This to me means that whatever Cabinet does, they simply
have to please Parliament and must not care whether the people are happy or not.
To me this means that because parliamentarians have a medical aid and can afford
to buy medication from pharmacies, they will not feel the pain of going to
hospital and come back with no drugs. As long as Cabinet makes sure those
parliamentarians medical aid is paid, then Cabinet is safe as the people whom
they are responsible for are happy. Who will then speak for the general
populace?
It is not disputed that section 84(1) mentions that the people are to be
represented by their freely chosen representative in government. But from what
we have experienced this far, are the people of the country truly represented in
government? A representative is someone who carries out instruction of the
person who gave him or her a mandate. Now the question, do our parliamentarians
carry out the mandate of the people who elected them? If I were to ask, was the
chairperson of the portfolio committee carrying out instructions of the people
of his constituency when he decided to unilaterally scrap out some provisions of
the SODV Bill?
Or was it the mandate of the committee he is heading? Why then was one member of
the committee and the DPM out crying that they are not aware of the changes in
the Bill? Who then mandated him to withdraw the Bill? In my opinion this
demonstrates that the man was on a frolic of his own and trying to please
whoever he was pleasing by doing this and unfortunately it backfired.
Who is to blame for all this? I then got an answer that the chairperson of the
portfolio committee is not to blame for all what he did. I was also blaming him
and feeling he was wrong in doing that. Reading through section 79 of the
Constitution I came to the conclusion that the chairperson was not wrong in
doing what he did. The section 79 provides that the basis for election in our
country is on an individual merit. That applies to appointment as well.
To then act as an individual without the involvement of others is what
guarantee’s one an election or appointment into public office. So the
Chairperson was acting on his individual merit and that is what would guarantee
him going back to parliament. This section removes the responsibility of the
elected person to the people because if the does not have individual merit he is
out of parliament.
It is this individuality that causes all the problems. If as an elected person I
receive instructions from my constituency which instruction does not guarantee
me a merit then I should not carry out those instructions as I may not be
elected or appointed for lack of merit in what I do. I think it was the same
reason Matsanjeni North Member of Parliament decided to renegade against his own
submission.
Such submission was not going to give him a merit. So is the chairperson of this
portfolio committee. Cabinet is responsible to parliament and parliamentarians
must act on individual merit, why then do we expect them to do what is
beneficial to the people of the country. So who is to blame?