Gravy train makes stop for Moroka

| Friday January 29, 2010 00:00

Like many other Batswana, Moroka lost his job last year, he at the polls, many through retrenchments and collapse of companies reeling from economic retraction. Many of these individuals have not been so lucky, as the economy has not recovered well enough to provide jobs for them. Not so with Jacob Nkate, Kavis Kario and Neo Moroka. While they are all qualified and experienced men, so are many others who are still on the unemployment queue. The difference is possibly the fact that these three are senior members of the ruling Botswana Democratic Party. The BDP does not allow its blue eyed boys wallow in poverty. No! They cannot do that. Not when they are still in government.

All they need to do is pull the levers of power. De Beers could not even wait for the ink to dry on damaging reports that they have been bankrolling, wining and dining the BDP over the years. This includes even buying out a president out of office. They appointed Moroka even though there is a CEO currently in office. They have appointed another senior member of the party that they have allegedly been fraternising with. Is Moroka's appointment a continuation of the BDP and De Beers romance? Much of the alleged BDP and De Beers romance is within reproach. De Beers mines national resources of Batswana and we are now worried about their overt interest in the BDP. If De Beers helps BDP to stay in power and even chooses who in the BDP should be in power, we ought to scream in concern. Is De Beers interest in congruence with our national interest? We do not doubt the vast experience that Moroka has and we believe he is capable of leading a big corporation. But this still begs the question: Was this the only consideration? We will ordinarily not be bothered who De Beers hires because they are a private company.

However, when it means that they are dabbling in our local political affairs and have almost exclusively been given diamond mining of all the profitable mines in our country, we become more than worried. Perhaps the BDP is beholden to De Beers such that they have become too blinded by the little crumbs they got for themselves, to consider other better players. We do not want to believe that Former Debswana Managing Director Louis Nchindo did all the political shenanigans that he is alleged to have done purely acting on his own, we believe he was carrying out the instructions of a much bigger player who had an interest in Botswana's political and economic affairs. On another matter we want to appeal to the governments of Botswana and Zimbabwe to try and tread very carefully on the alleged imprisonment of Botswana officials who strayed into Zimbabwe. There ought to be a diplomatic solution to this problem other than going any other way. Wars have been fought between countries over little issues. We want to appeal for restraint and speedy resolution of this impasse.

                                              Today's thought

                    What is going on in the inside shows on the outside.

                                             Earl Nightingale