Time to be decisive: Let's reset the COVID-19, war effort

Kgosietsile Ngakaagae | Monday July 26, 2021 06:00

It's hard saying these things. Somehow you wish everything was working fine. No one wants to denigrate President Masisi. But we face the pitiless logic of facts. The war effort has backfired spectacularly. It has backfired because it was turned into a looting fest. Masks were sold at P600 a unit. Town Mayors supplied relief essentials, and tenders were given to close family of those in power. President Masisi had hoped to replicate former President Mogae's success without following, or learning from his example. Sadly, things have gone south. They have gone south, not because we don't have skilled people among us for the job. I belive Dr. Masupu, Prof. Mosepele and their charges are eminently qualified. Things have gone south, because we lacked political leadership.

How did we overlook the need for just one, extra facility. How did we overlook the need for capacitation, after two extentions of the State of Emergency. We have gone through two successive waves of the virus, and we came out, no wiser. Surely, buying vaccines was no capacitation. When the SOE was first sought, there was no vaccine in the market. So, delays in vaccine arrivals are a pretext. Now the money is gone, and the people are dying. The nation is in fear. The nation is grieving. And the nation is angry. Never has public frustration been so palpable. Never in my forty five years of life, and living through three Presidents, have I seen our people lose faith so quickly in their leadership.

But we can wail over our situation all we can. I doubt it is of any use now. The govt is practically at wits end. Pride, and political cost, would not allow them to acknowledge failure, even if upwardly they may be conscious of it. But it may well be time to "reset", the Covid war effort. Truth be told, we have no choice. The current wave has exposed what we have been running, which was no more than a reality show. It has shown us we are still at March, 2020. I mean, being such a sparsely populated country, we are second in the world with regards to transmission. Worse than the overcrowded cities of the world which hold millions more, with less resources.

The task force must accept their efforts have not been successful, to put it midly. I have no doubt they did their best. Their best simply, was not good enough. It's not that they aren't qualified in their respective callings. They lost the plot, on account of poor political leadership. President Masisi's experiment, has failed.

We must set up the temporary hospitals, as a matter of urgency. December is far away for the Johnson & Johnson vaccine promise to be of any comfort. We must manufacture the beds locally, through an all out effort harnessing all available skills. True we may not have the diagnostic technology that comes with treatment and such will have to be procured externally, where lossible. But we must audit our capacities, and look inwardly for what we can do in the shortest possible time and do it. With depleted means, it's time for self reliance, as far as the circumstances permit.

Yes, there are less resources, but the nation must be saved. It's time for a second round donation effort and sad as it may sound, for a year pay cut across all sectors. Everyone must take a pay cut, as a temporary measure. It's fair