Free Electricity Connection Not For All

Thulaganyo Jankey | Tuesday April 23, 2024 09:10

While this would seem a low-level ambition it was a reality which most of us aspired for.

I told this to my kids the other day and they tongue-in-cheek told me such ambitions should be buried deep in the archives of regrettable aspirations. But they don’t know our struggles. Most of their ambitions are pegged around owning Ferraris, beach houses and aircrafts - things which most of us battle-scarred beings know are reserved for fiction and Hollywood.

Electricity came into public discourse recently when the president made an announcement regarding free electricity connections for the citizens. Anything the president says gets into the realm of national chit-chatter. Let’s say the president says he’s thinking of making it legal for rapists to boil in oil. Everyone will latch onto that with the gusto of an attack dog being led out of an SUV.

The whole week people will debate whether the offenders will be better off boiled in Olive oil or the usual cooking oil or engine oil. If the president says wearing a yellow hat is a violation of senior citizens’ right to vision there will be arguments about the shade of yellow he is referring to, the cutoff age of senior citizens and whether the country should have senior citizens in the first place. So as soon as the announcement was made that connecting electricity will be free for the citizens people started arguing about it. Why should electricity connection be free? Water connection should be the one that is free. Wi-fi connection should be declared a human right on these shores. These formed a greater part of the pub debates.

Such announcements are now coming at a fast and furious pace at the level of blink-and-you-will-miss-it. Since we are now at Chema Chema pace everyone must make sure they have bundles in their phones and their DSTV subscription is paid for. Otherwise they will miss the announcements.

Looking to catch the free electricity connection train I waited until the 1st April which was supposed to be the onset of the freebie. So I confidently sauntered across to the BPC office with all manner of haughtiness to apply. The conversation flowed smoothly until I told the officer my physical address. She said to me they are not going to do that for anyone from Gaborone North and all its freehold brothers. So in short staying in Gaborone North means I am shorn of my citizenship rights. Gaborone North people are always dancing along the knife-edge of denied services but now the blade is getting sharper and sharper.

Dusty roads, sporadic street lighting are a common theme for us in this neck of the woods.

Let me put this to bed before I catch any strays. Only last week a very enraged reader said to me ‘You are the reason it is hard to get people to stop saying retard’. I don’t how a supposedly humorous column could push the ragemetre that high to the point of being confronted in the streets of GC. I was later to realize he had mistaken me for a totally different columnist. Good thing he didn’t have a gun!

(For comments, feedback and insults email inkspills1969@gmail.com) Thulaganyo Jankey is a Rapporteur and training consultant who runs his own training consultancy that provides training in BQA- accredited courses. His other services include registering consultancies with BQA and developing training courses. Contact him on 74447920 or email ultimaxtraining@gmail.com