Gaolathe resigns from Parliament Committee

Member of Parliament for Gaborone Bonnington South, Ndaba Gaolathe has resigned from the Parliamentary Committee on Finance and Estimates.

Gaolathe has for long decried lack of capacity in the committee as a challenge. The MP said while he is satisfied that the Executive represented by the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development has a rigorous method to consider projects and processes he is concerned that Parliament through its Budget and Estimates Committee does not have a process at all.

Gaolathe who holds an MBA Finance (Wharton School) is probably the highest qualified member of the committee, which is chaired by Ignatius Moswaane, MP for Francistown West. “The Budget Committee considers submissions from the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development. It considers these submissions and they are supposed to have a process by which they actually evaluate these projects that are being submitted or proposed.

“I put it to you as Parliament that there is no process at all. In a progressive Parliament and in a progressive system, a parliamentary committee is supposed to have an objective process by which not only do they evaluate these projects but they actually score them on a number of criteria. One of these criteria may include the feasibility of what is being proposed”, said Gaolathe when debating Supplementary expenditure for the financial year 2016/17.

He stated that leaders must have the requisite personnel infrastructure to do the technical assessment when dealing with issues of budget allocation, budget appropriation and assessment of feasibility. “It is very strange here. I have seen governments and companies where assessments are done by experts. In this Parliament we have a Committee that does not have the machinery and the infrastructure to give a technical assessment about whether what we are receiving from the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development or from the Executive of our Government system has merits.

“You know these lapses mean that as a system, as a Parliament we are actually irresponsible, for us to be deliberating over billions, millions and hundreds of funds without a proper process, without a proper personnel infrastructure”. The legislator said it is something that needs to be addressed decisively. He revealed that when looking at Parliamentary Committee on the Estimates and Finance report, it does not give reasons or justification whatsoever, why they have agreed or acceded to certain requests. “This in my view is a travesty.

“When you look at the request of the Directorate of Intelligence and Security (DIS) by P15.5 Million and this request apparently is relating to the expanded security, management of security system platforms for the BOT50 celebrations. I really fail to understand how one can justify such a quantum for something that has been planned for in any case.”