Ebineng is not the villain

Editor | Wednesday January 26, 2011 00:00

It is because of this negativity, they say, that we do not celebrate our heroes. In fact, we seem to have a collective inertia not to nurture any hero and we are only too happy to put to the axe anyone who wants to raise a finger from mediocrity. As the media we have been blamed for cheerleading the charade. We do not have the conscience nor the conviction to deny the charge. Like vampires we have on more than one occasion demanded that heads must roll and indeed in some instances heads rolled. Unfortunately, when this happened it was not just the heads that rolled, our national progress and psyche also took a tumble. Yesterday, the media announced that the Bokamoso Private Hospital boss had been fired. Even without the media passing judgement the callous and presumptious public square lot have already read the guilty verdict against Ebineng.

The picture in our sister publication- The Monitor- shows a morose, aloof looking Ebineng. No doubt this picture will obviously give fodder to the churlish presumptious public square as they roast and grill the Ebineng era. Of course people lost jobs at Bokamoso. Many Batswana were recruited overseas to come and work at this hospital. Our hearts go out to the expatriate professionals who were recruited to help set up this facility and now that dream seems to have all gone up in smoke. With Bokamoso we thought Botswana will be a regional health beacon but... In our view Kabelo Ebineng is a visionary and a hero who should be celebrated. This is the same man who has been at the helm of two of the largest medical Aid schemes under the Associated Fund Administrators (AFA) managers of Pula and BPOMAS schemes. It would be an understatement to say that Ebineng did a terrific job while managing the affairs of these two schemes. Elsewhere medical aid schemes are crumbling but under Ebineng's stewardship he grew AFA resources. Yes, the irony is that these resources were gobbled up by his grand project-Bokamoso.

Even though the Bokamoso Hospital seems to have floundered this should not detract us from appreciating the foresight and vision of AFA that was prosecuted by Ebineng as the CEO- and we would say successfully. For Ebineng to have conceived and set up this world class facility is a big achievement. As Martin Luther King would say - he raised this country from lethargy and mediocrity. Let us not be shortsighted and only focus on the end result for we would be making a fatal mistake in doing so. We understand that part of the reason why Bokamoso crumbled was the huge salaries that the hospital was paying its staff. We beg to differ, when you want to retain and keep the expertise that Bokamoso needs you need to pay top dollar. Did government really support this facility from conception and even when it started business?  Let us not be blinded by negativity, Ebineng is a visionary and should be regarded as a hero who boldly took Botswana forward.

                                                    Today's thought

                      As a private entity, my ministry can only support the owner's efforts.

                                     - Assistant Health Minister Matlhabaphiri

                                 answering a question about Bokamoso in Parliament.