- Speaker gets Parliament to act on the basis of an unnamed source
- Opposition accuses Speaker of misleading Parliament
- Kgosi Mosadi confirms she never said to anyone she wanted to step down from the post
LETLHOGILE MPUANG
The Paramount Chief of BaLete, Kgosi Mosadi Seboko II, has rubbished claims that she requested to step down as Botswana’s representative at the Pan-African Parliament.
This follows a vote in Parliament – led by the numerically preponderant Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) – to end her role as the country’s representative at the African Parliament on Tuesday afternoon this week.
The Sovereign of BaLete was axed as she attended the Pan African Parliament in the very role that she purportedly wanted to quit.
“It is a lie”
“That is rubbish,” said a fuming Kgosi Mosadi last night. “I am at the Pan African Parliament as we speak. I have never said to anyone that I want to resign. It is a lie.”
The Speaker of the National Assembly, Phandu Skelemani, told Parliament yesterday that he was informed by an unidentified MP that Kgosi Mosadi had informed him that she wanted to step down as Botswana’s representative at the Pan African Parliament.
Misleading Parliament
Despite protestations by opposition MPs that the Speaker should not to act on the basis information from an unnamed third party rather than a letter from Kgosi Mosadi herself, Skelemani maintained that the information he had received was credible and factual and that Parliament had to decide on it as a matter of urgency.
Whereupon the MP for Okavango, Kenny Kapinga accused the Speaker of misleading Parliament.
“I have done my investigation and what I have established is that Kgosi Seboko has never said to anyone that she wants to step down (from the Pan Africa Parliament),” he said. “So, the Speaker has misled Parliament.”
Forest Hill Farm
In the end, 24 MPs of the BDP voted to remove Kgosi Mosadi from the Pan African Parliament against the opposition’s 16 votes.
Meanwhile, observers believe that this was punishment for Kgosi Mosadi’s spirited determination to win the Forest Hill Farm that the government sought to dispossess BaLete of.
The Court of Appeal ruled only last week that the BaLete are the rightful owners of Forest Hill Farm.