BPF instructs Butale hearing
FRANCISTOWN: Some key members of the Botswana Patriotic Front (BPF) are pushing for suspended president, Biggie Butale’s hearing to be expedited.
Sources said on Monday this week the National Executive Committee (NEC) held a meeting where it gave the party’s Disciplinary Committee (DC) a timeline of two weeks to have deliberated on Butale’s case. That was after one of the senior party officials reportedly expressed concern about the party’s failure to call Butale for a hearing timely.
“The chairperson of the DC has been told to update the NEC on the progress made in relation to handling Butale’s case on the April 23. If significant progress has not been made, some NEC members have proposed that he (Butale) be reinstated,” a senior BPF official said on condition of anonymity.
Various sources have also confirmed that at a recent NEC meeting, the consensus was that Butale has been unfairly treated and denied the right to be heard within a reasonable time.
Butale was suspended early last year pending a disciplinary hearing following sexual allegations leveled against him by a student party representative. Another accusation is that Butale referred to the BPF DC as a kangaroo court. He is also accused of convening a meeting aimed at paralysing the BPF at a farm near Mahalapye. Butale maintains his innocence on all charges.
His hearing was first postponed last May after the party DC said it is still resolving some internal issues. The hearing was again postponed in July last year. The party would until then cite COVID-19 restrictions as the reason for not calling Butale for a hearing.
But since COVID-19 restrictions were lifted, the party has been silent on Butale’s hearing. Some have even averred that the party is reluctant to call Butale for a hearing because there is no solid case against him. There is widespread talk that when Butale was brought in as BPF president in 2019, he was not a preferred choice but a decoy towards the substantive. This week, BPF spokesperson Lawrence Ookeditse confirmed that issues surrounding Butale’s hearing were among the key agenda items at the party’s NEC meeting.
“We spoke about the need for the matter to be resolved as soon as possible because at the NEC we believe that justice delayed is in a way justice denied,” Ookeditse told Mmegi.
He added that members of the NEC emphasised that the DC should be in a position where it can respond or let the NEC know where there are bottlenecks hindering the progress of Butale’s case.
“If there is a problem and the problem is the DC itself or Butale making it hard for the hearing to convene and finish, the matter should then be referred back to us within two weeks. Once we know that there is a problem, we will be in a position to find an alternative way to deal with team matter.”
He added: “The key thing to take away is that we are not saying anyone is at fault.”
However, contrary to what some sources in the party have told Mmegi, Ookeditse denied that there is talk of reinstating or removing charges against Butale. He maintained that the NEC wants to be in a position where the case is heard, and the party moves on .
“The DC is a sensitive organ of the party and we should not be seen to be meddling with their work unnecessarily or unreasonable pushing them. The reason we are pushing them now is that we realise that it has taken a bit of time to conclude the matter. Previously we understood because there was COVID-19 and all that, but things have liberalised.”
The suspended president has said he cannot talk to the media pending the finalisation of his case.