What do you do when you find out that your monthly grocery is running into tens of thousands of maloti yet your favourite food is papa and all you drink is goat milk?
Scrutator hears that Size Two (only Scrutator is allowed to use that nickname) was shocked to find out that the people in his office were stealing in the name of his stomach.
The senior officers, who have since been suspended, are said to have been looting government coffers using Size Two’s name.
For years these officials have been having a jamboree “munching” our maloti while claiming to be loyal to Size Two.
The evil that men do!
When our monies gave them unbridled comfort those “bossy boots” are alleged to have gone into a looting overdrive.
And soon enough some of them developed exaggerated bums because they kept looting our money while doing nothing.
They were giving government contracts to their friends, relatives, nyatsis and cousins.
So serious was the looting that even their dogs, pigs and monkeys in their villages got contracts to supply Size Two’s office with goods and services.
It was a free-for-all as they unashamedly dipped their calloused fingers into the cookie jar.
The more they looted the more they wanted.
But because nothing in this world lasts forever the unscrupulous two-timers met their comeuppance this week.
Forensic auditors allege that the officials were silly thieves who lacked sophistication.
They have now been sent home so they don’t continue with their tomfoolery.
Scrutator hears that there was pandemonium on Monday after the five received their “love letters”.
Some are said to have cried crimson tears while others tried to protest their innocence. But their boss would have none of their explanations and they are now on the verge of being jobless.
Soon they will be pounding the streets of Maseru.
Thanks to the benevolence of the United States government our village roads are being tarred and flushing toilets will be in our homes soon.
At long last, the days of the medieval bucket system and squatting are over.
Yet Scrutator is beginning to wonder whether the dozens of ‘tenderpreneurs’ who got the lucrative contracts to build the roads and lay the sewerage pipes know a thing about what they were hired to do.
Scrutator is no civil engineer but she knows a sloppy engineering job when she sees one.
She also knows that it doesn’t take a year to build a five kilometre tarred road even if it is made of silver.
Take for instance the mess created by the contractor who is working on the road from the Main North 1 road to Ha Mabote Police station.
It’s either the engineer in charge of the construction of that road is always drunk on something very intoxicating or he stumbled into the job.
Or the company belongs to his uncles.
Or his friends, relatives, and family pets presided over the interviewing panel that gave him the job.
Otherwise, why else would it take the company more than seven months to construct that tiny village road?
One morning they are laying the sewer pipes then when it seems they have finally completed the job they started ages ago they remove the pipes and lay them again. Then the excavator comes in, digs up the road again and for a week the workers are sweating. Motorists are told to find other means to their homes because the constructor is doing a correction of a correction.
Then the excavator disappears and peace returns to Ha-Mabote again.
But soon they will be back to do more digging and digging.
This tragicomedy has been happening since Size Two’s sod-turning ceremony last year. In the meantime the road has become worse than what it was before their interventions.
It’s sad that such contractors keep winning tenders in this country.
Many will remember that a few years ago a company owned by two brothers won the contract to construct part of the road to Thaba-Tseka.
Well, that road now looks like a gravel road but the ‘tenderpreneur’ keeps getting more tenders.
The tar has been washed away.
Apart from a few streets in Thamae, Scrutator is hard pressed to find any road that was properly constructed under this urbanisation project.
The pavement that was “thrown” near the Lakeside traffic lights bears testimony to the incompetence of the engineers we have hired.
Speaking of incompetence, Scrutator has now come to the unfortunate conclusion that the editors of The Silo, some of whom have been to NUL, are hopelessly beyond redemption.
To read that paper you need the patience of Job and the wisdom of Solomon to understand what they are trying to say.
Scrutator is giving away two books to anyone who can break the puzzle in the following sentences written by the newspaper’s editor in his sleep-inducing column.
“Frankly speaking it is deviating to think of agriculture as a political issue while many countries including our neighbors South Africa are living harmoniously through their escalating agricultural sector.”
“Under any policy indulgency framework there ought to be policy makers and legislators, to be simpler for the farmers to achieve their goals in their different projects there must be a government policy which regulates and sets the tone of production for such farmers.
Scrutator is serious about giving a prize to anyone who can decipher what those sentences mean because she too is flummoxed at how they could have been written by a university graduate.
Sangomas are also welcome to break this code.
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