By Majirata Latela
The Clerk of the National Assembly, Advocate Lebohang Fine Maema, says Lesotho’s bicameral parliament does not have laws that vide guidelines on how joint sittings should be conducted.
Pandemonium broke out when finance minister Thabo Sophonea was preparing to deliver the budget speech for the 2022/2023 financial year to a joint sitting of the two Houses of Parliament on Wednesday this week. He was interrupted by legislators of the All Basotho Convention (ABC) who did not want the budget read, claiming they had withdrawn from the coalition government.
Prior to this, the Speaker of the National Assembly Sephiri Motanyane had made an announcement to the effect that he was suspending proceedings as there was an urgent matter he had to confer upon with leaders of political parties represented in parliament.
About an hour later when the House reconvened, Motanyane read out a correspondence from the secretary of the ABC parliamentary caucus, stating that the party was withdrawing from the coalition government it leads, which it formed with the Democratic Congress in 2021.
In the end, the ABC lawmakers did not migrate to the opposition benches, but unleashed mayhem as they frustrated attempts by the finance minister to read out the budget speech as they insisted that by virtue of him being a member of the ABC, he was no longer a minister and was in no position to read the speech.
This move by the Speaker raised questions over the correctness of permitting the business of the National Assembly during a joint sitting with the Senate.
However, Maema told this publication yesterday that what happened was neither unconstitutional nor constitutional because there are no laws that govern joint sittings of parliament.
“As far as the budget is concerned, technically it has been read because the Speaker of the National Assembly ordered the minister of finance to proceed and read it. However, he was disrupted by the members of parliament who did not want parliament to go ahead with the reading of the budget,” he said.
On the one hand, Transformation Resource Center’s Tsikoane Peshoane told the publication that a precedent on what happened in parliament was set by the self-same Speaker of Parliament when Thomas Thabane was removed from the position of Prime Minister.
He said what the members of ABC did on Wednesday was not supposed to have happened. He said the only way the party could have handled the matter was with a vote of no confidence against Prime Minister Moeketsi Majoro.
He added that the dilemma that ABC was going to face was that it was going to be obvious who was anti-Majoro and who wanted him in power.
Meanwhile, on Thursday during the parliamentary proceedings, the Member of Parliament for Mabote constituency Moshoeshoe Fako asked the Deputy Speaker about propriety of what happened when the budget was supposed to be read.
“Yesterday was meant for a joint sitting, meaning the meeting was for National Assembly and the Senate, and it was for the budget. So, what happened played out in front of development partners and people we depend on for budget support.
“I just want to know whether what happened yesterday was correct. The National Assembly proceeded with the business which was not meant for the day and Members of the Senate were not even given an opportunity to say anything about the matter even though they were part of the sitting,” Moshoeshoe asked.
In response, the Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Lebohang Ramohlanka retorted that Fako was not supposed to be asking that question but should rather be pointing out what went wrong.
“There was nowhere, where parliamentary practices were flouted. With this the house is adjourned until tomorrow at 9am,” she said.
