How BDP could survive in October!
Michael Dingake | Tuesday March 18, 2014 16:39
While the DPSM was making-believe at negotiations with public sector workers , the president who on his inauguration had waved the four Ds- roadmap, later extended to five: Democracy, Development, Dignity, Discipline and Delivery asserted himself under a sixth covert D, Dictatorship.
President Khama ran a sideshow at the kgotlas telling the rustics that the DPSM and BOFEPUSU could go ahead wasting time negotiating inflation adjustment of 16 percent;, as far as he was concerned there was no money, BOFEPUSU could forget about inflation adjustment of three years, moreover he made it known that he had assumed a new role of leader of the Unemployed Workers Union (UWU) and was more concerned with his union’s fate. BOFEPUSU v DPSM negotiations were stillborn under the midwifery of Khama IV of Bangwato!
The first D to operate was the covert D, Dictatorship. Negotiations came to naught as Khama decided on a paltry three percent across the board for public servants which benefitted the top civil servants who did not ask nor need it! The relations between BOFEPUSU and government have remained acrimonious and irreconcilable. The make-appear recent negotiations under the Bargaining Council has not improved matters; a miracle must intervene to change the three-year stand-off between the regime and the Union as the highest inflation adjustment after five years is not envisaged.
The afterthought fifth D, Delivery has been a big casualty in the BDP scheme of things: The Fengyue BDC glass factory project in Palapye has been scrapped with millions of pula going down the drain; the Botswana Meat Commission (BMC) enquiry by a Parliamentary Committee shows a trail of inefficiency and mismanagement to make countless Batswana weep; the Ministry of Education is in shambles with Exam results showing an underperforming Minister who tries to shift blame of her underperformance to teachers, parents and schoolchildren away from herself!
Khama who promised to fire underperformers in his administration sees nothing wrong with his Minister’s performance and recently marshaled all Cabinet Ministers to close shop to devote precious time to the Ministry of his favourite Minister. Nothing appears to work under Khama; Ministry of Minerals, Energy and Water Resources (MMEWR) has plunged the nation into darkness and near-thirst. And the president is mum after confidently assuring Batswana that from July 2013 power cuts will be a thing of the past! The administration is on auto-pilot,’ none can be blamed for anything that goes wrong.
The BDP, the fountainhead of Khama’s regime is wobbly and cracking. The party tried a fraudulent stunt in the Francistown West by-election and retreated with an egg-splattered face; Bulela-Ditswe process this time around has been a circus to out-circus one the retired VP imputed to the 2013 Zimbabwean elections; no less than 11 MPs including five Ministers were rejected by the voters, not even the public servants disenfranchisement could come to the rescue; political heavyweights in Serowe North East and Mmadinare constituencies were eliminated with a vengeance in the manipulated re-runs!With all the foregoing political baggage how can anyone dare prophesy Domkrag victory? Is he a genuine prophet or one of the many who have made Botswana a haven for false and necromantic pastors/prophets’ paradise, who invade and populate Botswana to exploit Batswana’s gullibility? Botswana has become a dumping ground of religious perverts, crooks and money-changers.
Batswana have become grass-eaters, they religiously believe in quacks who claim to cure AIDS and other incurable diseases, victims of magicians who can make money multiply itself. The Zim prophet like all desperate quick-buckers have discovered that Botswana is the mint of creative pervert minds so, he is probably eyeing a resident permit in this country of milk and honey for foreigners. He knows Batswana being mavumazonke (yes-persons) irrespective of will believe him. Believing him the BDP followers will campaign harder to have ‘prophesy’ fulfilled.
The opposition on the other hand will be demoralised and give up the fight . This way the BDP wins and the ‘prophet’ reaps a resident permit by fluke! Already last week when the power cuts recurred you’d have expected anybody with mens sana in corpora sano to be alarmed and to criticise! In a Gabz Fm programme however an irate caller 22 years old lambasted the critics and the complainers. What? How many banana (youth not fruit) think like their 22-year old contemporary? With their education and techno-savvy, the youth should be in the forefront for change. Can they be, when one of them spits fire and urge us to be yes-men/women? They don’t register to vote and those who do, may not appear on polling day at the polls! In the same Gabz Fm programme we had what the South African wordsmiths call, tenderpreneur condemning the statement issued by the leader of the opposition’s as ‘people who aren’t in power, with lots of time in their hands to do nothing!’ Gosh! Are Batswana going to the dogs? Imperceptibly? Tenderpreneurs in contrast to entrepreneurs are far from being innovative; they are more of parasites than innovators.