COVID-19 doses stolen from the poor and lavished on the elite

Kgosietsile Ngakaagae | Friday April 9, 2021 14:36

After complaining about the bullying, President Mokgweetsi Masisi, went on national television to say that, “re kgerisa other Batswana”, which meant that the bullies were being bullied. We are back, to the same subject.

We were shocked over the past two days with revelations that the elite had made themselves a special dispensation, out of public resources, to save their own lives whilst our poor parents perished in the villages. Surely, there are not enough vaccines for Batswana generally, including those with underlying conditions. But alas, there are enough vaccines for a special category referred to by the Assistant Minister of Health, as “bagolo”. This ‘bagolo’ category, does not include your parents and my parents.

Do not be lied to. Were that the case, a like facility would have been set up in Maun, Francistown, Serowe and Gantsi for “bagolo’, who reside in those towns and the general localities. That is true, unless the argument is that “bagolo” only reside, in Gaborone.

The special dispensation was elitist, and stinks to high heaven. Life saving vaccines were stolen from the poor, and lavished on the elite. When a nation was sinking, the first rescue boat dispatched by government, was dispatched specifically for the elite.

The choice of location is perhaps another subject altogether. To begin with, government lied, that a call had been made for Batswana to assist by availing their properties for the effort. This was a lame attempt to sanitise what was by all account filthy, in the extreme.  By the way, I know a “mogolo”, when I see one. At the age of 45, I still find it hard to be sitting comfortably whilst an elderly person has nothing to sit on; whether they sleep in a castle, or under the bridge. Assuming without conceding that the motley lot that congregated at Satar Dada’s house were in fact “bagolo”, we could still have made way for them in the town and village queues where their example would have been most appreciated.

Instead, government chose to vaccinate same in secret, and sought to purge the rot by funnelling Judges, there too. This was to give the sickly act, some cover of dignity and necessity. Where a Judge is involved, it is easy to argue safety. The question is, why COVID-19? Why is it that government does not have specialised clinics exclusively catering for “bagolo”, in the normal course? Places where bo Rre Mogae, le bo Rre Kwelagobe, le bo Rre Boko, can go whenever they have a headache.

The answer is simple. Government needed an excuse to set aside a fraction of the limited consignment for the elite. Otherwise, the elite could arrive at public facilities to discover that the doses were finished, and suffer the fate of the commoner. Let us approach it from this angle.

There can surely be no doubt that Rre Dada is a “mogolo”, in our cultural understanding of the word. At that level, he is no different to the old woman with no shoes, in Mmanxotai. But the facility was not made for such. They were not told about it. They were not invited there, even those residing, in Gaborone. The cultural definition can therefore, be safely eliminated as being inapplicable. Age, was not a factor. What remains then, of Rre Dada, of which he qualified. There are at least three attributes. He is the ruling party treasurer, and one of its funders. Secondly, he is rich. Thirdly, he is a former MP. But then, that does not close enquiry, either. There are so many other people with like attributes. People who have held offices in both the ruling, and opposition parties; people who are rich, and people who have held parliamentary seats.

They were not invited, and certainly, not told about the arrangement. What then, must have been the criterion; except elitism! A ruling class; a motley crew of Batswana of Asian descent and rented blacks siphoned off our vaccines to save their lives, while our parents out there, were perishing. It had nothing to do with anyone being, a “mogolo”.

It is in fact worse. If what the Sunday Standard reports is correct, Mr. Dada took temporary office as a front desk officer for the Ministry of Health, running an official registration programme parallel to that run by health officials.

He would then, we are told, pass his private list to the ministry. The public were not told of Dada’s new role.  A separate door was created, through which an individual had unfettered access to a scarce life saving resource. He could list, or reject at will, because he was under no one’s supervision. And then, the Assistant Minister of Health, has the effrontery to tell the public that it was all done for “bagolo”.

The same newspaper reports that according to its sources most of those vaccinated at the Extension 11 house, were of the Indian race. By so unashamedly licking the boots of this racial category, the Government of Botswana, is polarising the nation, and threatening national security. These undue privileges are stoking the flames of racial conflict. It’s only a matter of time; the BDP’s  obsession with Indian money, will destroy our nation’s peace.