Speaker apologises for technical glitch

Journalists had a shock of their careers at Monday’s Budget hearing in Parliament when their Press Gallery experienced a total shutout from the proceedings.

The shutout did not affect only the press corps but also some of the guests watching the proceedings from Ntlo ya Dikgosi- which was used as an overflow to accommodate other guests who didn’t make it inside the public gallery.

The shutout was caused by the two outages that happened within a short space of time. The Speaker of the National Assembly, Gladys Kokorwe has since owned up and apologised to stakeholders.

Kokorwe said they have investigated the matter and realised that there was a technical problem with one of the electrical cables that connect to the Parliament UPS. “The cable got burnt down because there was some loose connection that was not detected earlier. We have since normalised the situation by replacing the cable this morning,” she said.

The shutout didn’t affect guests seated on the marquees as they were receiving a direct feed from Btv, said the Speaker. Kokorwe described the incident as “very unfortunate” and unreservedly apologised to all who were affected.