Masisi missed the opportunity

| Saturday May 25, 2013 00:00

The President gave the South African daily, Business Day, a no holds barrel, yet candid and honest picture of our desperate situation courtesy of the shoddy jobs by Chinese multi-nationals at our national stadiums, schools, roads, and lately the power cuts that have taken us back to the days of candle and paraffin.The President should not be the lone ranger in this public criticism of fong kong works. Yes, even senior ministers like Masisi need to echo this message, uncomfortable as it may sound, because the truth is we have been crippled by sub-standard Chinese contractors who line their pockets and leave our economy in ruins; see the black-outs, the stadiums, the roads, the schools, the airport, the list is endless. Instead Masisi used the year of the dog festival to tell his Chinese patrons how he enjoyed a free, all expenses paid for visit to China last year. He raved about the beautiful things he saw in China that made him marvel at their technological advancement.

Minister kgathi's languages speech reassuring

Youth, Sport and Culture minister Shaw Kgathi has reassured all Botswana communities that through his ministry, government is prepared to support and sponsor research and documentation of the diverse languages. While this show of an all encompassing commitment is welcome, we would like to see it followed by pieces of legislation that commit government to ensuring that there is legal recognition of all languages spoken by Batswana.While Kgathi encourages the use of the diverse languages on national television and radio stations, the truth is this progressive stance needs to be aligned with the national language policy that has seen the use and promotion of one language for all, being Setswana. We can only hope the minister was not being hypocritical, considering that recently parliament flatly refused to enact a legislative piece for the establishment and recognition of community radio stations and televisions. While community radio stations work well in South Africa and Namibia who are our neighbours, here the majority of MPs and ministers entrusted with the enactment of the legislative piece fear that such will drive us into tribal chaos.