Planning to fail
The stars are aligned for another epic stinker. The year is starting off on a false note (free education you said?), it will deteriorate towards the middle and end in complete and utter disaster. And there's not even an end of year hoax to get all excited about.
It's the time of the year when you realise that your salary (the one you tried to rid yourself of in the quickest possible time in December) is all of a sudden not big enough any more.
You curse your boss for only giving you the eight percent increase last year and convince yourself that you wouldn't have half your struggles if it was at least 10 percent.
Some of those funeral policies are cancelled and the insurance company staff get an earful from you because they've been eating your money. Years of paying premiums to have a small cash amount available for the expenses incurred during a loved one's untimely funeral is flushed down the drain. No refund! You are livid. You are convinced that the bloody polisman didn't explain that bit to you.
You pray that your 95-year-old distant uncle from the village, whose funeral policy you've been paying for over 20 years (and decided not to cancel), will pass on soon as the premiums have long surpassed the little cover you'll be paid and the oompie is still going strong. You ask for forgiveness immediately and hope God would let that one slide.
You curse the Minister of Education and wish him ill-health for announcing a phantom 'free education' scheme. After investing in several bottles of Richelieu and Coke, with the children's school fees after the announcement, you suddenly realise you've been had by the government once again.
You rake together the remnants of your pride and knock on the door of the friendly cash-loan at the corner to pay for stationery and for those 'donations' to the school. You curse yourself for allowing the two apostles, David and Abraham, to take you for a one. You refuse to ask forgiveness for wishing the minister ill-health. You thank the Lord that the Castros are so generous.
But you curse the electorate, the media, the ombudsman and the government for not doing their work for 22 years. For 22 years we made faint noises and quoted the Constitution, you know the parts that state, “primary education shall be compulsory and that the State shall provide reasonable facilities to render effective this right for every resident within Namibia.” But apart from that we all accepted the lies we were told by the politicians. A right fumbled by folly is a right denied but a right not claimed is a right forfeited.
You curse yourself because you've never insisted on this right and believed the politicians when they lied about the absence of funds and how they provide facilities to 100 percent of eligible kids. You curse everyone around you for shutting up when this right is again being denied our kids and our Constitution besmirched by the lackadaisical manner in which the bureaucrats go about ensuring this right.
It took 22 years for us to get some semblance of this right. Will it take another 22 years for the politicians and the bureaucrats to get the planning, implementation, communication and monitoring of it right?
Could we really accuse the politicians of fiddling while Rome was burning while we watch soapies and allowed our schools to steadily deteriorate for two decades?
A big fat lousy UNGRADED for all of us!
rambler@namibian.com.na