3RDi

Opposition unfair on Masisi

One of the major stories this year will be a court case in which relatives of President Mokgweetsi Masisi are fighting over a lucrative (P500 million) tender. Naturally, the president is being hauled over the coals and one very active participant in such enterprise is the Botswana Congress Party president, Dumelang Saleshando. The latter was actually the very first person to alert the nation about the president’s sister having recently become an A-list tenderpreneur. Raising this matter in parliament, Saleshando said that the president’s sister won a Covid-19 tender when she didn’t have documents that one ordinarily needs to compete for government jobs. He wasn’t actually blaming the sister but the brother – and in one respect, was actually being unfair on the latter. In 2019, Masisi announced that Batswana would soon be able to operate businesses without licenses. The following year, when Covid-19 hit, the president’s sister won a tender less one licence. So, what is the fuss all about because her brother said people can do business without licences?

Public transport fares

Each time, fuel prices have gone up, public transport operators have raised hell. Last year, they actually went on strike, forcing the government to increase public transport fares. Indeed, it makes sense for operators to agitate for an increase in fares when the price of fuel increases. That says that operators are fair-minded and sensible people. It would seem though that operators don’t know what has been happening in the past several months: fuel prices have been steadily decreasing – which should trigger decrease in public transportation fares. That is indeed the formula that operators have implicitly advocated for. Oddly, as prices continue to fall, fares have remained the same – which strongly suggests that operators don’t know about the decrease. In terms of a formula that they have not only articulated in public but have assaulted non-cooperating colleagues over, fares should also be going down. We propose that the Botswana Energy Regulatory Authority should create a communication channel with the public transport operators’ association. As a matter of fact, operators (and not the media) should be the very first party to be notified when there is a fuel price decrease.

‘Drinking alcohol for past five days’

A Motswana can’t go to Harare and brag about having two university degrees because the average Zimbabwean has at least nine such degrees and can do just about any job in Africa. On the basis of such education, a Zimbabwean can be qualified to work as a lawyer, a masseuse, an accountant, a “Fire!” church pastor, a landscape architect, an IT engineer, a manicurist, a plumber, hairstylist, refrigeration technician, sanitation worker and early childhood teacher. A Motswana can also not go to Soweto, Johannesburg and show off a hunting rifle. That is because far from being a township, Soweto is actually an armoury. We say all of that to raise issue with a faddish song in which the singer brags about “drinking alcohol for the past five days.” The singer can brag about doing that to everybody else but Botswana drinkers. There are Batswana who have been drinking alcohol for the past 90 days straight at a round-the-clock alcohol bazaar that has been established at Block 6, Gaborone post-Covid.

Boko Haram is right

We all know what Boko Haram and Al-Shabab are and what they stand for. However, not everything that these terrorist organisations say is wrong. One such is that the earth is flat (in a horizontal position), which viewpoint is hotly contested by western science. Boko Haram and Al-Shabab are right: the earth is flat and not round like a globe. If it wasn’t flat, we would long have fallen off into the dark abyss. That hasn’t happened because the earth is horizontal – which is why you can travel from Gaborone to Francistown and beyond.

Scalpel hospital

Much has been made of the fact that when you go to a public health facility, the doctors there will prescribe paracetamol for whatever ailment you have. But what of private hospitals? What’s likelier to happen there? The paracetamol of these hospitals is surgical operation. If you have a nagging headache, it is more than likely that the doctor examining you will recommend a surgical operation that would enable him/her to see what is wrong with your head. Another doctor will determine that the best way to tackle constipation is to cut your stomach open to see what is messing up your gut. Your left eye doesn’t see good? The best remedy would be to get you to the operating theatre within 12 hours. Let’s pretend to not know why that happens. The most important medical instrument in a private hospital is not a stethoscope but scalpel. The latter raises the question of whether these hospitals shouldn’t be legally required to have “scalpel” in their names. Thus the Bontleng Private Hospital should actually be called Bontleng Scalpel Hospital.