Khama must declare his assets
We are shocked to hear that Cabinet Ministers have been attempting to placate their boss, President Ian Khama, this week. We learn that they have been ordered, perhaps cajoled, to declare their assets, liabilities and interests.
In other countries, people would celebrate this as a small step towards transparency. But small steps, though often commendable, can mislead because democracy does not grow incrementally, as some in our political leadership may argue. While democracy is a continuing project, there is nowhere – in theory of practice – where the teaching is for democracy to be done in bits and pieces.
Granted it is important to proceed with deliberation and with critical attention to the result, but being so methodical does not necessarily mean being slothful and tardy. Yet what the Executive is doing is not even proceeding with deliberation; its pure theatre.
We shall not celebrate this new regime in which men and women prostrate themselves before the President to confess their sins and sing his praises.
The first problem we have with this is that a motion calling for a declaration of assets has been debated in Parliament and those who were present then know that the new regime is a mockery of the principles that informed the very idea.
Assets are not declared for the mere objective of letting the Boss know where you may be compromised. A Register for a Declaration of Assets, in progressive democracies, is meant to give the public confidence in their representatives by presenting them as honest men and women who have nothing to hide.This is for the compelling fact that elected representatives should be in office to serve the interests of their constituencies and the wider interests of the nation.
While it is a fact that ministers are appointed by the President and are therefore answerable to the President, that should be the case only to the extent that the President is him/herself answerable to the public that is the ultimate for both.
For the President appoints the cabinet on behalf of the voting public, hence there could be no benefit to the public when cabinet ministers declare their interests to only the President. Such an arrangement is but a private rendezvous behind closed doors consciously calculated to keep the public ignorant. But how does an ignorant public vote properly?
Secondly – and more importantly – where does the President declare his/her interests? In a regime in which the President is not expected to declare his interests in a public register, the purpose is reduced to an exercise in futility.
In such a cynical situation, what should the public make of the proverb that a fish starts rotting from the head?
It makes us shudder, to say the least. And that is the reason we prefer to start from the head: President Khama must simply lead by example and declare his assets and interests to the public.
Today’s thought
“Politics, as the word is commonly understood,are nothing but corruption.”