The amount, we have learnt, ranges between P12,000 and P20,000, a huge amount of money for any individual to self-loan from any organisation, be it a football team, a department of state, a parastatal, a private company, a religious organisation or an NGO. Commercial banks and small loan operations have their doors open at all times for those in need of their services, thus obviating any justification for individuals to dunk their fingers in public kitties in theft or to self-loan, which ultimately amounts to the same thing. What is frightening is that what happened at the Botswana Football Association could be a reflection of the kind of society that we have become.
We say this because all too often we read, hear or watch news of physical scuffles inside churches, at NGOs and Village Development Committees, co-operative societies and women's sororities over loot. We have become a society where those in positions of power think they are licenced - by election or birthright - to do as they please with the resources of the organisations entrusted to them to run. This is why the Ministry of Labour and Home Affairs, which has the ultimate oversight responsibility for many of these errant organisations, is struggling to have them submit their annual returns. Some of the wayward characters are so corrupt that they succeed in casting those who dare to call them to account in a bad light. Many a church, a football team, a burial societies, trade unions and even political parties have been rent asunder because of this abuse of office. As we write this, a couple of cases of this sordid sort involving trade unions are before court. A significant one that has gone unpunished is how the Office of the President transferred P16 million from the National Disaster Fund to Directorate of Intelligence and Security. From the summit of the OP, the cancerous opprobrium is also much present at village level where VDC funds are the preserve of rural elites who are fiercely averse to enquiry. The trouble is that these funds are often collected from the poorest of the poor in the form of monthly subscriptions to the BFA and God-fearing parishioners who give wholeheartedly out of nothing. It is perhaps in the Church where the robbers are particularly heartless, stealing - as they do - from grandmothers in the name of God! It is in the Church where there is a sudden emphasis on the tithe like never before and womenfolk give as though salvation was available to the highest bidder. It is when the pulpit attracts wily characters in the manner of an organised network that parishioners must perhaps consider 'running for the hills' in accordance with Mark 13: 14-18. As for the BFA, we recommend a new dispensation under which football will become a beautiful game once again. A good start to that end is for the law to take its course.
