Khama's cut speech raises eyebrows

EPHRAIM KEORENG
Staff Writer | Friday July 2, 2010 00:00

Khama read the speech at the full council meeting where he had gone together with his Cabinet to address councillors.  Besides Khama, council chairman Motlhopi Leo also read his speech before the full council meeting.

However, Mmegi was shocked to receive a mutilated eight-page Khama speech. The last two pages were partly cut out. On page seven, right at the top, paragraph 17, a sentence referring to the recent walkout by Gaborone City Council (GCC) opposition councillors is there. But the sentence is incomplete, as the other part has been cut out with what looks like a pair of scissors.

The next page, page eight, shows paragraph 19, which is also incomplete.However, the paragraph, which has not been severely cut out points out that '...I do not see how anyone can report fully and truthfully if they have denied themselves the opportunity to interrogate those charged with the mandate to deliver, by failing to attend such meetings as this one'.

On the other hand, the chairman's speech was uncut but still had a very interesting feature about it. It was bound immaculately in a paper binder and wrapped in a plastic cover. When Mmegi enquired how the President's speech was in a such a shambles, Khama's senior private secretary Duke Masilo said they cut out the speech just before it was presented.

Pressed to clarify, Masilo said there was nothing sinister about it. 'It was just that the President didn't want to read it (the cut text). So since we didn't have a computer in our possession, we decided to just cut it out,' he said.