Mr president, delaunch the blue train, please!
Michael Dingake | Tuesday April 5, 2016 14:23
Poor things, they had bought the necessary train tickets hoping to travel down South in style, enjoying the luxury, and superb comfort. Batswana had long demanded the re-instatement of this mode of transport to relieve the congestion on the unsafe public road transport.
The no-show of the BR Express at the scheduled time at Francistown railway station was an anti-climax. Passengers clutching their purchased train tickets waited, writhed in agony, scratched their heads until early morning hours without anybody informing them about the fuel contamination responsible for the train incapacitation!
Who was responsible for this mess? BDP Secretary General is reported to have suggested: Hands off the government! Who, then? BR Board? Apparently parastatals/state enterprises are bastard offspring of the nation. Wait! But bastard children do have parents, don’t they? Why did the president, first citizen of the republic run all the way to Lobatse railway station to Christen and launch the bastard; obviously stealing the limelight from the rightful parent? Could it be the president is the foster parent? Even so, he can’t plead immunity nor dissociate with the prospective delinquent little bastard, after whetting many an appetite with the wonders in store at the bambino first steps!
The president painted the Blue/BR Express in economic stimulus package colours. The train would stimulate the ailing economy; employment and informal sector enterprises would sprout and thrive! What happened couldn’t have been a passing embarrassment to the president alone, it had to be such to the ‘You-can-Trust-us Party’ and government. Is the Khama administration jinxed?
Unedifying stories of corruption in the procurement of the train coaches from Transnet, the South African company had appeared in one weekly newspaper, but had been promptly quashed by Transnet Engineering Chief Executive. First suspect accomplice, would he admit the alleged corruption?
What should HE do after experiencing the letdown of the train he launched with all the confidence of the man he is, do? Denying paternity isn’t an option.
Three exit points: Confess the abject failure of his roadmap, particularly the fifth D (Delivery of Service), an afterthought of his five Ds; desist from the monopoly of personally publicising all prestigious government projects; De-launch the BR Express! The embarrassment about service delivery was of course not a new, isolated, embarrassing experience: Morupule B incident must be engraved in his memory inasmuch as it is so in all our memories: acting on information from his Minister, HE had promised Batswana a while back, that load-shedding would be a thing of the past; hardly a fortnight after the announcement, HE didn’t know where to hide when load-shedding returned with a vengeance; the Palapye Glass Factory project collapsed before it could be publicised to zip the mouths of opposition scavengers who feed on government’s deleteriousness; beneficiation wasn’t an original government idea, but had the Glass Project succeeded, the government would have been noisily thrilled.
Henceforth, HE should dodge been taken for a ride by any promise of service delivery, by his public officers, invariably he ends up with an egg on his face! Regarding BR Express fiasco recently in Francistown, my humble submission is, enough is enough! HE should go to Francistown to apologise publicly; firstly to the passengers who were inconvenienced and stranded after deliberately missing their routine road transport, which though without the anticipated comforts of the BR Express, didn’t frustrate and disappoint to the extent of the disabled Express.
HE as the humble servant of Batswana, and someone who would like to leave Batswana with a good image of himself, should apologise to all Batswana who expected to hear and read newspaper and radio reports, that not only was the launch at Lobatse deserved, but a good harbinger of travel; that the maiden run of the long expected train had started with a flourish. Right there, at Francistown he should DELAUNCH the phantom BR Express; it failed to leave the station at the scheduled time and doesn’t augur well for the future! I know HE, a soldier from the boot to the helmet, is a stickler for punctuality; the BR Express mocked his sense of propriety and made him unequal to the task of commanding his roadmap directors.
The ‘coming back’ of the blue passenger train was dangled before the eyes of Batswana too long. And now, this! Commentary about the quality of the BR Express is unimpressive. It is reported to leak like a sieve in places, to suggest that quibbles about its newness and workmanship have merit; doubtful it was value for money spent. However we learn the looks of it drew cheers and ululations from all who saw it either at the launch or as it glided along the rail line during its inauguration lap. Understandably it aroused all the rhapsody and excitement the event of its nature could do!
One more thing, I would expect HE to consider is: Seeing the launches or announcement of some of these prestigious mega projects, more often than not end up embarrassing HE by failure or under-achievement, shouldn’t HE leave the launching of these projects to the relevant portfolio officers - the cabinet ministers, so that when they don’t come-of as expected, the failure is reflected on the cabinet ministers, not the president. That way, the president can always appear later to chastise his bumbling ministers. By his forwardness and love of the limelight, he cannot escape blanket condemnation when-ever his administration creaks!