A decision of great historic significance
No, he didn’t! I had that rare coffee-splatter-all-over- the-keyboard moment earlier this week when I opened my newspaper and saw that it finally happened.
Hail to the chief! His Excellency President Hifikepunye Lukas Pohamba actually made a decision! I’m so proud of the old man, I nearly sent him my last two pieces of kudu biltong but feared it might not have passed the protocol department’s taste test.
It’s been a long time coming though. Him making a decision. Also, him trying to find out what’s really been festering in health.
The old man announced the appointment of a commission of inquiry into the state of the public health sector and it wasn’t a second too soon. But Pohamba
didn’t need the media to exhaustively report on the shenanigans in our public health system, or the lack thereof,
to know that it was in the toilet. His wife used to work there. It’s actually been there for quite some time and no one seems to have been bothered by the stench of the unsightly brown, bloody gooey mass. No, every big wig appointed there has been too busy cashing their S&T cheques, complaining how poorly they’ve been treated or dishing out dodgy oxygen tenders to actually notice and clean up the mess.
I know why the old man has steered well clear of anything that even remotely smells like a commission of inquiry. He just knew I would remind him of his terribly slow reading ability. Remember comrade, when the euphoria of the new job still rang in your ears, you promised that you would make those commissions
of inquiry, initiated by your predecessor, public. Still nothing... What kind chief? It’s eight years!
Maybe we need a commission of inquiry into the presidential commissions of inquiry. The Swapo government are now treating those secret dossiers like a brother in jail. You know he’s there but you never talk about him. How about a commission of inquiry into Botswana poaching Namibians? And this just a few weeks after Seretse Khama Ian Khama said Namibia should look east. Now the bachelor showed us who’s the boss. And our Lukas is treating the incident like he does with everything else; Ignore the shit out of it in the hope that it will magically disappear. I believe it’s a trick he learned from PROs operating in Windhoek.
If you voted for me as president today I would institute a commission of inquiry into the amount of money we have to fork out for S&T for civil servants tomorrow. Taxpayers will have to cough up more than N$1,7 billion in the next three financial years for S&T allowances for civil servants. For the five years from 2010-11 to 2014-15, Government’s S&T bill is estimated to skyrocket by 54 per cent, according to The Namibian earlier this year. Now, if that’s not reason enough for the president to completely lose his temper and slap the people responsible for the civil service then I don’t know what is. How about a commission of inquiry into the workings of our next President’s head. Prime Minister Angula recently justified the exceptionally high board sitting fees of directors of companies like the GIPF. Some of these okes could easily make between N$50 000 and N$90 000 a month. And that’s for attending meetings. Imagine how well the civil servants, who actually employ these guys, must be paid. They’re probably all millionaires. Or maybe we should just ask
Japie van Zyl to send Curiosity’s substitute to probe citizen Nahas’ head so that we all could know, once and for all, on which planet his head resides.
No civil servants’ pension has been harmed while writing this column.
-rambler@namibian.com.na