What�s in a name�..?
Michael Dingake | Tuesday October 4, 2016 15:48
Think of the four Ds. later upped to five: Democracy, Development, Discipline, Dignity and Delivery. Some of us. if not most, had expected the Ds to take our Democracy to new heights - stimulate our Development, enforce the Discipline required for public service productivity, enhance the Dignity of Batswana and Deliver public services promptly and efficiently. Instead we have become used to witnessing diminishing returns on democracy and at best a stagnation; development, discipline, dignity and delivery have all become enigmatic, unattainable and sub-standard, displaying attributes diametrically opposite the objectives. Talk of unintended consequences!
Next, we have the alcohol levy which was meant to reconstitute Botswana society in the admirable image of teetotalers as envisaged by the President. If the irreligious pastor from Arizona has to be believed or at least if he has to be given the benefit of the doubt, Batswana have become a mass of alcoholic good-for-nothing creatures, devoted to indulgence in alcohol. The country reeks of alcohol according to Pastor Stephen Anderson. Could it be the reason why His Excellency gave the peripatetic and somewhat unhinged pastor quick marching orders, when he inadvertently implied HE’s punitive levy wasn’t working? Initially I had speculated that our President, by unceremoniously bundling the pastor out of the country, meant just to demonstrate his expertise in the military tactics he learnt at the academy. I was oblivious of the embarrassment the alcoholism outburst might have needled HE . Pastor’s outburst aside, HE’s alcohol levy impact, has still to be felt; what I have personally observed about its effects is that managed to drive Batswana weekend revelers out of Botswana to burn their hard-earned pula across the borders, thereby undermining the country’s trade surpluses, accentuating unemployment problems as our breweries, liquor wholesalers and retailers retrench staff to control production costs. Whichever way you look at the President’s alcohol levy, it missed its target.
While we are there, think of the backyard gardening fiasco; its excessive water demand element made it an obvious non-starter; the capacity of beneficiaries to afford the water bills assuming the dams over-flowed was an amazing oversight by the project planner; amazing at the schemes the President’s mind can conjure up, without examining whether they are deliverable or not! You’d be wrong to think the President wasn’t exercising his mental capacity in search of some measure to empower his subjects. Remember the license he extended to street vendors to sell their magwinya and other wares they normally sold on pavements and street corners, in government offices? Outstanding demonstration of HE’s sympathetic tendencies to the small man/woman struggling in the informal sector. The snag of course was that though it would save the amount of time that was wasted by office workers sneaking out to buy these items, and partly compensated by more time office workers spent in their offices, the balance of probabilities remained though, that the interruptions and disruptions by the vendors would undermine productivity. That wouldn’t take away HE’s innovative inclination .
Right from the moment he was recruited into the system and appointed part of the executive, HE’s mission was initiative and innovation. The status quo bored him. Small wonder he applied for sabbatical leave even before he settled in his Vice Presidency. He didn’t find merit in the structure of government and questioned why he had to be on par with all the Cabinet Ministers; he demanded the premiership for himself though it wasn’t in the constitution. Think of other incidents that depict HE as spectacular and unique; you’ll be amazed at how the man thinks out of the box, innovative and iconoclastic!
Lat week he reshuffled his cabinet. He did more. He reshuffled the Cabinet Ministers but reshuffled even more, the names of the Ministries. “What is in a name?” Juliet asked Romeo. “A rose by any other name will smell just as sweet …!” She could have concluded, and a polecat by any other name will stink just as bad! Honestly I am overwhelmed by the revision of ministerial names, what’s the point? My understanding has always been that the Ministries’ duties and functions are defined and spelt out in the documents that by law and regulation must guide the incumbents. The Ministry of Health by definition for me, as Mr Public, deals with all aspects of health in which wellness is a key component. Attaching wellness in the definition is effusive and an uncalled for. The PSP attempted explanation of the additional verbiage to the name doesn’t clarify the clumsiness of treating words as the magic wand that ensures performance. Nutrition has always been key to health. Why does the PSP pretend that in the previous Health Ministries, nutrition wasn’t part of health?
‘Governance’ intrudes in the Ministry of Presidential Affairs’ name. Why? PSP explanation, is Ministry will coordinate government affairs and public administration, and good governance ensures corruption and maladministration aren’t tolerated in all sectors of the economy. But DPSM, DIBS and DISS as departments under previous Ministry name emphatically ensured those objectives were prominent in practice. So what is the renaming fuss ? HE normally disapproves frivolous government expenditures. Did financial estimates in this exercise convince him prudence didn’t matter? Stationery, equipment, vehicles, buildings were all to be redone. Was this renaming a jolly frolicking with resources? Juggling with innovative ideas seems President Khama’s pastime!