Let us pray for our President

Kgosietsile Ngakaagae | Friday January 8, 2021 17:11

Let us continue to explore topical national issues that affect our nation without fear or favour. Free speech should be a tradition, engendered in all of us. It is the most potent weapon, in holding our leaders to account and in asserting our rights as against the State, and each other. True, it can get very irritating to those at the wrong end of the stick, but overall, it benefits them too. Through free speech, government is just forced to be accountable to the public. It is forced to be publicly accountable.

In this first column of 20201, I shed a tear for those who have had to make tough decisions of withdrawing their kids from schools they preferred for them, because personal, or family income had diminished considerably. Further, I shed a tear for our President. I will return to the latter subject, shortly.

Somehow, I hope that government understands that the bill for the social burdens households have long accepted as their own, will revert to it, gradually, unless a clear economic path is forged. It is just a matter of time before government finds itself in a rather invidious position. Our population, is used to government bearing a highly disproportionate balance of the bill, relative to its socio-economic welfare.

At the present moment, the socio-economic prognosis is bleak, to say the least. The second wave of COVID-19, real or perceived, is set to stretch our economic muscle to full elasticity. As pressure mounts on government, a rise in taxes will be inevitable, laying waste our competitiveness as an investment destination, putting more pressure on foreign reserves, and affecting our creditworthiness as a nation.

The supposedly upper and middle income earners would bear an enormous tax burden, as government is bent beneath the weight of the social security net. As all this unravels, the clock is, and will be steadily ticking towards the year 2024, where the President and his party will have to account for their five years in office. Surely, President Mokgweetsi Masisi is determined to emulate Festus Mogae’s achievements with holding back against the monstrous epidemic. But Mogae’s era was an era of relative economic stability and Mogae was never obsessed with the personal wars His Excellence is. Besides, much as HIV burnt a hole in the national purse, it could at best only cause a dent. President Masisi must be mindful that whilst those loyal to his cause might credit him for the legacy of defeating a pandemic, it will be his success against unemployment, and on the economy, upon which he will be considered for a second term.

President Masisi’s credibility has suffered a serious knock overtime. The Directorate on Corruption and Economic Crime (DCEC) and the Directorate of Public Prosecutions (DPP) in particular have greatly contributed in that regard. In the cataclysmic exposition of their lies, his detractors have at least, appeared to be vindicated. But it would be unfair to heave all blame on the two doomed institutions of government. His personal fallibilities, have proved to be his Achilles heel and have made many wonder if the man is not the best example of the human fallibilities he swore to defeat on ascension to office. Banyana Farms exposed our President badly. His controversial business relationships did not help his cause.

The first thing he needs to do in 2021 is to purge the DCEC and the DPP. For some of their deeds, he might have to apologise, all at great cost to own dignity. Such an act might not be the most comfortable politically. It is however, his best shot at rebranding his presidency or salvaging whatever credibility is left of it. The cost of so doing is, to me, preferable than that of allowing the present trajectory of petty and plainly ludicrous politically inspired investigations and prosecutions, to reach their logical end. As it is, the “Masisi o a re bitsa”, and the “re sisibetse” slogans have ceased to be a proud rallying cry of party faithfuls hopeful for a new presidential era.

It has become a horsewhip, by which his detractors mockingly flog his followers and his administration. Sometimes, I get angry at him looking at the cesspool of malice and vindictiveness that has become the core business of government. Sometimes I feel pity, and shed a tear for him. As it is, it is set to end in tears. That’s why, he needs our prayers.

The perpetual state of emergency that the nation is in, for which very flimsy reasons have ever been given (in particular, the extension), is selling him off as one who is running away from the responsibilities of the economy and using COVID-19, as cover. It is time that His Excellency hands the responsibility of fighting the epidemic to professionals and returns to the nagging issues of the economy. After a year, he must surely have laid a good foundation for a final assault against the pandemic. With Western drugs rolling in, he can no longer claim that his personal intervention is absolutely necessary for pushing back the virus.

As the year begins, it is important that we pray for our President. To every Christian, it’s a duty. The demon of pettiness and vendetta, that has haunted his administration, and laid siege the Office of the President and state organs like the DCEC, and DPP, must be permanently exorcised.