The constitution clearly states that all persons and entities should be treated equally. As someone who has sworn to uphold and defend the constitution, President Mokgweetsi Masisi should treat all entities equally. For reasons best known to him, Masisi has decided that publicising details about ongoing negotiations with De Beers at kgotla meetings will somehow help the nation. If doing so does indeed help and in deference to what the constitution says about equal treatment, then he should also publicise details about negotiations with other companies that also do business with the government – companies like G & M Building Services, Monteco Solution and Steve Harvey Global. G & M Building Services, which is linked to Masisi’s sister and nephew, does multi- million business with the state- owned Water Utilities Corporation and at one point, financed the ruling party. There are a lot of people who are interested in how these deals came about and the president would certainly be useful in that regard. At the height of Covid- 19, Maun West MP Dumelang Saleshando, revealed in parliament that Monteco Solution, which is owned by the president’s sister, won a P13.7 million tender without a competitive tender. That means that there had been some negotiations – which negotiations the brother of the company owner ( President Masisi) didn’t update members of the public about at kgotla meetings. Steve Harvey Global, which is owned by American entertainer and Masisi’s bosom friend, Steve Harvey, also won a P470 million contract to produce content for Mass Media Complex without a competitive tender.

Around the same time that the company won the tender, Masisi was addressing kgotla meetings nationally but never once updated members of the public about this deal. By the same token, the ruling Botswana Democratic Party should treat its financiers equally. If it is going to put the business of its chief financier ( De Beers) out in the streets, it should do the same with other BDP financiers, especially Chinese companies that win big- money tenders.

DEFENCE FOR LATE PAYMENT

With an economy devastated by Covid- 19, the government of Botswana has, like most Batswana, turned to cash loans. As the average Motswana, Finance Minister Peggy Serame now has all international cash loans on speed dial. As that average Motswana, she is going to find it extremely difficult to repay those loans. However, in the case of the Chinese lenders, there may be some wiggle room that she can use to shuffle around when Chinese deputy sheriffs come knocking. Courtesy of long Covid, one can develop clinical forgetfulness. This should come in handy when Botswana defaults on its loan repayments to the Chinese and deputy sheriffs from Beijing come to Gaborone to attach the Sir Seretse Khama Barracks. Serame’s excuse should be that she simply forgot to repay because of forgetfulness resulting from long Covid.

The beauty of this excuse is that she can use it over and over again. Given where Covid- 19 originated, the Chinese should understand and the conversation should end there because they typically don’t want to talk about Covid. However, this excuse can only be used with the Chinese.

PHOTOSHOP CURE

From unemployment to bars that close too early to “old people” ( meaning 40- year olds) refusing to step down from jobs to “oppressive” societal norms on simple decorum to limited Wi- Fi coverage, the youth have a lot of complaints. If only they knew how lucky they are. There is a past in which teenage boys literally paid their school fees by having to miraculously round up and drive wild cattle to the market for over 50 kilometres - then walk 10 km to school and back home each way five days a week. In school, what was supposed to be corporal punishment was actually attempted murder.

And if you were lucky enough to be given pocket money when you went on a school trip, the highest amount you would get was P2 and you would be encouraged to multiply it through “spinning”, a form of amateur gambling in which players take turns hiding coins with the palms of their hands. Exotic food ( meaning rice) was eaten once a year ( on Christmas Day) and its only sauces were tomato paste, mayonnaise and atchar. Few had telephones in their houses and the whole village had to share a single communal payphone that a whole platoon of village beauties abused on a daily basis. In really remote areas, beauty contests were held in a cattle kraal and the stage, where contestants had to imitate the exaggerated hip- sway walk of Gaborone girls, was the bonfire- lit part of the kraal. At this point, some young readers would be wondering why all these practices were “not reported to Child Line.”

Well, then the only child line was of schoolchildren queuing up to get beat up because they couldn’t solve a difficult Maths problem. Today’s youth don’t even have to worry about pimples and black heads because they can just photoshop them away and post a fresh- faced display picture on WhatsApp. Sure they may be jobless, feel that greeting elders and saying “thank you” is oppressive and have to contend with unreliable Wi- Fi but they should also look on the bright side. They can cure their pimples with photoshop and actually hoodwink a future ex- lover on the basis of such deception. In the past, a years- long ravage of pimples stood between teenagers and such indulgence thus delaying their induction into the league of legends.