Tṧepang Tṧita-Mosena, the deputy leader of the Movement for Economic Change (MEC) is one of influential female politicians who have careered to the pinnacle of politics. She took over as the Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly after the crunch October 2022 polls.
The Lesotho Times caught up with Ms Tṧita-Mosena last week to review her journey in her crucial role as deputy speaker and for her take on concerns that the current 11th parliament is the most inept in history after having failed to originate its own laws. She disagrees with that notion and believes frequent litigation against the legislature slows its work as it must wait for outcomes of court cases before finalising legislation.
A case in point is the constitutional case filed by Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA)-Lesotho chairman, Kananelo Boloetse, challenging the resuscitation of the Omnibus Bill and other draft legislation that lapsed with the dissolution of the 10th Parliament in July 2022. The Revolution for Prosperity (RFP)'s legislator, Puseletso Lejone, also challenged the 9th Amendment to the Constitution and won his case. The matter is now on appeal by opposition parties.
The litany of court cases against parliament stagnates its business, Ms Tṧita-Mosena contends. Even though the legislature is one of three arms of state (apart from the executive and the judiciary), it's overly reliant on the executive to fund its work. The attendant lack of adequate resources hampers parliament in effectively discharging its mandates. Nonetheless, she believes the 11th parliament is doing its best under trying circumstances. Ms Tṧita-Mosena told the Lesotho Times (LT)'s Political Reporter, Mohloai Mpesi, that for her to be an effective presiding officer, she must not only be impartial but be seen to be impartial.
Excerpts:
LT: Thank you for reserving time out of your schedule to have this interview with us. You were appointed Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly post the October 2022 elections. How has the journey been in the job?
Mosena: Whenever I meet Mr Motanyane (former speaker Sephiri Motanyane), I scold him because when you watched him presiding over the house, you would swear that's an easy job. He always made it look so easy.
But when I took over myself, I discovered that it's not an easy task.....You have to try and cater for everyone
It has been a rewarding journey though in the sense that this is a leadership role that one is playing for the country, which we need to take very seriously because it is an opportunity to make people appreciate what parliament is.
So, it has been so enriching in exposure to the dynamics of leadership and appreciating the responsibility of influencing positive participation in the parliament as well as infusing the essence of being honourable in Members of Parliament because we have a lot of new MPs, over a 100 of them.
It is a positive thing when you have the role of instilling the appreciation of what it means to be honourable in them.
LT: Would you say the National Assembly executes its mandate well? What are the hiccups, if any, that the August House comes across daily?
Mosena: So far, we have tried to maintain the order of MPs to an acceptable extent, managing situations when they arise although tempers flare sometimes.
We still have a challenge whereby parliament is regarded as not executing its mandate efficiently due to lack of autonomy. We must wait for the executive for things to happen and that delays progress on our part because in the absence of resources, there is no way we can execute our mandate.
The absence of funds hampers parliament from executing its mandate efficiently. We are performing short of the goals that we have set for ourselves.
The other issue is that, since we had a lot of new members, it took them some time to adapt to parliament's conduct. So, for over a year people were trying to familiarise themselves with parliamentary process. It was a challenge, but it was also an opportunity for them to learn how parliament works.
Now they are well versed with the conduct of parliament, and we are seeing progress.
LT: There has been a litany of court cases, which when one looks at, the natural conclusion is that they somewhat delay some processes of parliament. Am I right to make such a conclusion?
Mosena: The business of parliament can be delayed by that doorway of running to the courts. Meaning that, there is so much we cannot do when some of the parliamentary processes are challenged in the courts of law.
We faced that as a short-term challenge. But it has now become a norm, that when we try to push a certain business, it is being challenged in the courts and we must wait for the decision of the courts.
Sometimes the decisions of the courts delay our progress. We have seen with several laws that were challenged and they had to be abandoned. That adversely affects the progress of parliament. We need to move to a point where these issues don't contradict.
But for as long as there is that opportunity to run to the courts, we are not going to be able to make progress in some instances. If any ordinary Mosotho man can challenge the business of the House which is still being deliberated on in the courts of law, creating long waiting periods, then it stagnates our work.
LT: What are the challenges that you mostly come across? What would you say are your main worries regarding the day to day running of your office? Especially in an environment where you are likely to be accused of bias?
Mosena: When you are a presiding officer, you are supposed to be apolitical in exercising your role. You are supposed to give all members equal opportunity and equal appreciation of their roles. You don't have to take sides. You should address an issue for what it is, not who is raising it.
Obviously, a presiding officer is appointed because most MPs from the reigning government made the choice. The understanding is that I must always protect the government's side. Striking a balance has been very tricky because when you support government ideas, the opposition complains, it is as if I support the government. When you support the opposition's ideas, it's like you are on the side of the opposition and the government complains.
The most challenging thing is to strike a balance and you can only strike a balance when you rely on principles. Showing MPs that you are not taking sides, but only addressing the matter at hand.
So, you always must tread very strategically when you deal with both sides, so that they understand and realise that you are indeed neutral.
I am a deputy leader of a political party. That says in some instances I must take on my political party role. I always make sure that I take it where necessary, and that is when I am outside parliament.
Making people understand that now you have taken a role of politics as deputy leader versus that of deputy speaker is also challenging.
You must deal with it well. When you are invited as a deputy speaker, you must maintain that role. You don't mix it with politics. Which is sometimes challenging because when a political party leader who is also in the executive attends political activities it is understandable. But for me, if I attend such an activity as a deputy speaker, it becomes questionable.
So, when I am in the national assembly, I remove the political hat and put that of a presiding officer. It can become a challenge where my leader in my political party would be seen to be interfering into my duty of deputy speaker. But he has respected me enough and has that confidence in the decisions that I make as a presiding officer.
To me it says he trusts me as a leader and a woman. My seniors, both in the national assembly and political party, respect me as a leader even though I am a woman.
The other challenge is that you would realise that there are meetings of political party leaders. Some are just caucuses where they discuss their party affairs. Sometimes I participate and sometimes I don't.
I respect my leader to choose for me which ones I should attend and those I shouldn't depending on their sensitivities.
LT: What have been your highlights thus far?
Mosena: I have a very good relationship with my speaker (Speaker of the National Assembly Tlohang Sekhamane), and it helps when we plan together and execute our mandate. We have both send the message that parliament is open to the people. We have tried to be more engaging with the public, more than it was done in the past.
We have tried to make parliament more accessible, making people feel free to engage with MPs. We have also established stakeholder relations. We have had events of taking parliament to the people, where we have had interactions with the youth.
We have also strengthened our relations with development partners. They used to be confused because while they were working with the executive, they were not aware that they were not actually working with parliament.
We have just completed a strategic plan, to me it is a big thing, but it is yet to be big in execution. The other thing is teaching MPs to understand their functions. They must because there has always been this notion that MPs make laws and allocate the budget without interrogating it.
It (budget) comes here already prepared and they must finalise it in a month, which is a very short time. They are unable to scrutinise it. Sometimes it passes like that without understanding it.
Now I think they have begun to understand what it means to allocate funds, and that they are not just mere conduits to passing the budget.
So, I think giving them that sense of independence, ownership and appreciation of their oversight role, it's what we are doing well. More especially because we continue to empower them through trainings like at the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association (CPA) in the United Kingdom, where we draw our wisdom of conducting the Westminster model from. They are more empowered now than when they came in.
LT: What are the initiatives that the National Assembly has taken to allow the public to participate in matters that affect them? Representative democracy prescribes that legislators represent the interests of the electorate in the legislature. However, that doesn't stop you from taking other steps to bring parliament closer to the people?
Mosena: People have realised that with this parliament, there is an interaction on Facebook where we broadcast parliamentary proceedings. Yes, we are not stable because we are still fighting for the resources to have a more robust media team that will be able to give feedback regularly.
It is important that the public judge MPs based on their work.
Members of the public are allowed to attend open committee meetings to watch the proceedings. It is not usual to have presiding officers interact with the media and the public directly. But we are approachable from the top down. Anyone can call the speaker and the deputy speaker without any red tape...
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We want people to distinguish the work of executive from that of parliament because parliament is confused with the executive.
LT: The 11th Parliament is way into the second year of its life, fast approaching three (five or so months from now). How many new laws, not those originating from previous parliaments, has this one passed? There are public concerns that this parliament is too lazy to formulate and pass news laws. How do you respond to such charges?
Mosena: It may look as if this parliament is not working. But laws are passed through necessary procedures which while lengthy are part and parcel of this parliament and must be followed. Processes take time.
As much as we may not see the output, but there is always a lot of work being done behind the scenes...
Yes, it was an issue that there are no new laws that passed in the first year of its life (11th parliament). It was the Bills from previous parliament and the reforms constituted the bulk of the work that had to be done. Let's remember that there were many workshops, engagements behind the scenes.
In the second year there has been very big progress, we will remember the likes of three Bills of the Millenium Challenge Corporation (MCC), Labour Bill, Occupational Safety, Health and Horticulture as well as the Administration of Estates and Inheritance Bill. When the budgets passes, there are Appropriation Bills that need to pass as well, which takes a lot of time. We also have the Centre for Accounting Bill, 2024 in the works.
There are other Bills which have been tabled but are still being worked on currently, like the Computer Crime and Cyber Security Bill.
LT: Would you confidently say you are impressed with how this parliament has been doing things, such as effectively playing its oversight role (of the executive), especially regarding the utilisation of allocated funds?
Mosena: I am impressed with the intention because I know how much the MPs have a burning courage to put things into order. They want to do their work marvellously, but they are negated by lack of resources.
But where they can, they go all out, to the extent where they even challenged the executive. There is a point when they put their feet down, that the budget will not pass if the executive does not comply with certain aspects.
So, the executive has realised that they must work with parliament as an oversight body. Sometimes we rely on development partners for MPs to do their oversight job.
