Thank you masisi for clarity on the Mosu airstrip

| Monday November 18, 2013 15:43

This is after months of consistent denials from the Office of the president, in particular from the government spokesman Dr Jeff Ramsay. To be fair to Ramsay he initially seemed to confirm that the Mosu airstrip is being built on private land, before the answers changed to public land, and that it is being built 300metres away from the President's private lodge.

What Minister Masisi also clarified, which is worth saluting is the fact that the private airstrip on private land is nothing new or strange or smacks of corruption but a practice and privilege that has been enjoyed over the years by all the past three presidents of Botswana.

In fact for the record Minister Masisi states that former President Sir Ketumile Masire had three presidential airstrips built for him on his private farms, while the founding President had one airstrip built for him at Tuli Block, and to sum it up, the immediate past president Festus Mogae, also had a private airstrip constructed for him on public land in Palapye.

We also must thank the Minister for disclosing how much the airstrip is going to cost( P3 million), as well as clearly stating that the airstrip will also be open to the public. While the recent explanation is reassuring and indeed demonstrating that there should be no sinister motives read into the whole thing, we are worried by the manner in which the issue had dragged on and on in the media as allegations and counter-allegations flew fast and thick. Really an issue like the Mosu Airstrip should not have caused a fuss like this, if the flow of information was well managed by those entrusted with the responsibility.

Instead what came out of the OP office was the picture of a panicky public relations exercise that became a disaster for everyone. Is it that perhaps the office of Ramsay is often not adequately fed the proper information to enable it to execute its communication strategy with the expected professionalism?

There is no doubt that Ramsay is well educated, prompt, articulate, and very cooperative to the media, but when his statements about the same subject start changing colours like a chameleon, one begins to sense that something must be wrong somewhere in the flow of information.