Switch to Gabz FM now

| Friday August 10, 2012 00:00

It is Thursday morning, 7.07am to be exact and my matchbox phone - a cheap Nokia- beeps to indicate that I have just received an sms. I jump at the poor thing with one thought on my mind: 'This time I have won the Mascom competition, I almost scream, 'I have won a BMW!' The other thing I am expecting is a Barclays update on my account, to say P5.00 has been debited to it.

The first thing I notice after opening the sms is that the sender is MacDonald Peloetletse or McDee as I have saved his name - the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) chairperson of the publicity committee - who often sends me smses about party activities like press briefings and tip offs. As I scroll down the message I read: 'Tune to Gabz FM NOW. Minister Mokgweetsi Masisi. Topic - Freedom of Information Bill.' Out of frustration that my win for Mascom Competition has been postponed once again, I stop reading the message and jump out of bed to heed to McDee's request and switch from Motsweding FM, which I have been enjoying in my bedroom for more than two months now.It is a cold morning and I immediately snuggle back into bed. In all fairness, I knocked off at 10pm the previous night, so I compensate myself with at least two more hours in bed. Who am I to deprive myself when even health experts argue that sleep is a very important part of healthy human life.

I doubt, however, if animals like fish, donkeys, or humans like McDee ever find time to sleep. Fish reside under water for 24 hours, and it is not uncommon to see a donkey in the middle of the night eating anything it lays its eyes on. But at least donkeys sleep along any road they find suitable during the day. I'm sure sleep is a foreign thing for McDee whose job requires him switching through all five local radio stations, Facebook postings and newspaper reports in search of any remark on the BDP or President Khama.When I tune into Gabz FM, Reginald Richardson, or Reggie, is explaining that they have been trying to get a hold of Minister Masisi but his mobile phone is ringing unanswered. He continues the discussion with Gaborone Central MP Dumelang Saleshando on a different subject, before returning to the issue of Freedom of Information Bill, which was scheduled to be tabled once again in Parliament the previous day. It is 7.20am and another sms drops in my 'matchbox'.'S...t, who is this now?' I ask myself with exasperation. It is McDee once again, but this time the message starts with, 'Apologies,' and goes on to say, 'the message you received just a while ago was not intended for you. Trust you understand.''Uhu! He banna!' I gasp in astonishment.

I have now developed interest in retrieving the previous message. Just as I scrolled down the message, I heard Richardson say McDee sent an sms to Bay Tsimane. He reads it on air and it sounds exactly the same as the one I had in my matchbox gadget.I go back to mine and it continues: 'Call 3956962 or send sms to 14962 to defend the BDP. Letsema a letswelele. Please Democrats make those calls. We are starting to remove those who don't call at all as these messages are costly.'Little did I know that McDee has sent this message to many more journalists.It emerges at an Editors Forum meeting held at President Hotel at around 10am that the poor McDee erroneously sent the same message to a number of journalists. Everybody laughs their lungs out, as Dikarabo Ramadubu shares his message with the gathering.

This is the scandal of the year!One of the participants says; 'You see, the likes of BoMcdee mislead people into thinking that this Bill is an attack on the BDP. But this Bill is for the benefit of the entire nation, not the opposition, nor journalists.' Indeed the Bill is for the benefit of people like McDee. Just a few weeks ago, McDee sent me a sms complaining that a police uniform tender had been awarded to a foreign company when there are citizen-owned companies who have the capacity to produce the same products at high quality and at the same time would be creating jobs for locals:

'When you give these tenders to a Chinese company, it is like exporting jobs to China,' he would retort during our telephone conversation. We had another telephone conversation later and the tender subject came up again. I informed him that I was struggling to find information on the tender because of the inaccessibility to information from some government departments where some officers think those offices they work in are personal property.Obviously he needed us to inform him on why his company did not get much this time around. But surprisingly, he feels that the same government should not release information when others need it. Wow!

With the power that McDee yields, at least in the committee that he is a member of, one is left wondering how many important Bills have had to be deferred or squashed completely just because they came from an opposition MP, even if they were to his personal benefit.