Khama the confused president sows confusion
Michael Dingake | Tuesday April 8, 2014 12:34
A president who doesn’t read must be either an illiterate or a confused someone who finds himself, in a bizarre literate world! Admittedly he finds himself in this queerest of places where the unwritten motto is read or bust! Politics isn’t the dirty game he alleges to be, but a noble profession. Ironically Khama is deep in politics and sparing no effort to make it dirtier. So confused is he, he unwittingly taints politics filthier and confusing to the already confused Batswana.
Immediately after appointment as Vice President of the Republic he applied for an un-heard of sabbatical leave from cabinet. President Festus Mogae confused by the audacity of the confused upstart granted him the unprecedented leave, further overriding Sir Seretse Khama’s, (Khama’s father) formula, which prescribed , traditional dikgosi must first abdicate chieftainship, to be eligible to politics! Mogae, confused conceded the confused request until the BDP council intervened to stop the sabbatical leave nuisance. Khama’s leave was intercepted and confusion nipped in the bud. But Khama wasn’t done with his objective of broadcasting confusion havoc to public administration processes and procedures: He demanded appointment as prime minister! With hindsight one can’t blame him, since he doesn’t or can’t read, poor man hadn’t read nor heard the country had a written constitution to be read by aspiring presidents!
Since the new VP frowned equality with cabinet colleagues, appointing him Minister in the Office of the President undermined his ego. Mogae appeased him by assigning him the task of coordinating project implementation. Though the assignment made him a cut above others, it taught him little of his core duties and the art of service delivery; never mind, he added DELIVERY as an afterthought to the initial 4Ds-roadmap, only to exacerbate his confusion levels due to the enigma of this fifth D’s complexity to confused minds.
Khama is fond of putting old wine in new bottles; renaming ministries/government projects is his hobby. Namola Leuba (Drought Relief) he renamed, nay misnamed it, Ipelegeng (Self-reliance). Unemployed Batswana rely on this project. It revolves on rotational job stints of two-three months for a paltry P450! No permanent job creation programmes exist under Khama; everything is haphazard leaving Batswana confounded and flummoxed; why it’s called ‘Self-reliance’ when it makes Batswana slaves of this take-it-or-leave government programme is anybody’s guess! To sow more confusion, Khama suspended normal Executive duties to devote himself to philanthropic duties to enhance his confused popularity. A philanthropist at heart, he distributes blankets, goats, football kits, sweets from assorted donors, and ladles meat gravy to grannies and children on random walkabouts. Small wonder, his detractors accuse him of ‘stealing’ jobs from the underemployed social workers. He plays his popularity card well when you behold village aunties ululating, dropping on their knees and kissing his hands passionately after the handshakes he distributes generously together with blankets before TV cameras! He is un-equaled as almsgiver. The business community is in his pocket, donating generously to His House Appeal Fund, for the houseless. Mesmerised businesspeople respond to his appeals in intense competition; donations are affordable premiums to share the mutual anti-worker stance of underpaying workers with him!
The private industry workers’ pay scale is tied to government pay scales. It is BDP policy; he, like his predecessors inherited it from Sir Seretse, his father who was a rabid anti-unionist. Last week he played a dirty one on BOFEPUSU representatives currently negotiating salary adjustment with DPSM under the Bargaining Council. Khama went ahead to adjust salaries of non-unionised public servants by four percent, thereby subverting and making nonsense of the Bargaining Council mandate! He confuses and manipulates things in his favour. How many wouldn’t be confused when he poses before the average unsuspecting Motswana as angel Gabriel while he plays a different role with the Bargaining Council mandate? Shadow BCP Cabinet Minister Goretetse Kekgonegile put his finger on this confusing divide-and-rule tack when he said, ‘government is playing mind games!’We see this tack abundant in the Honourable Pelonomi Venson-Moitoi issue who under her confused leadership, the Education Ministry has gone to the dogs. Students have been failing more than failure itself. She blames everybody but herself, for the failures! Angry opposition voices have been saying Venson-Motoi is disaster personified and must go! Khama bound by hidden hoops of steel to the former education Minister has found solution in a confusion-studded formula: He has removed her from the headship of the Ministry and given her a scaled down assignment in the Ministry, obfuscating it in duplicity and intrigue; the scheming president feigning to act to resolve the Venson-Moitoi fiasco has delivered a master stroke leaving everybody confused including himself. Venson Moitoi obviously by Khama’s instruction swears she hasn’t been fired; Jeff Ramsay the spin doctor in the Office of the President, says Venson-Moitoi is no longer Minister of education; ‘Madam Speaker, Sir’ doesn’t know whether Venson-Moitoi is fillet steak or offal, she doesn’t know where to sit her in the house; the usual bootlickers, without whom Khama’s insulting machinations would cease, holler that Venson-Moitoi is still Minister by virtue of the constitution which stipulates 16 cabinet Ministers; that number staying at 16, there being no 16 without her, she is the 16th one! Mama Mia, has confused Khama bewitched Batswana intelligence? This is the mother of all the confused, dead, born and unborn!