AFTER a two-week hiatus, I guess we should start this instalment with a multiple-choice quiz.
How would you best describe Rantelali Shea, the Lesotho Workers Party PR legislator?
A. Silly
B. Vey silly
Don’t scratch your head until it’s bald because the answer is . . .
C. All of the above.
Honestly, Scrutator is yet to come across a man who is so out of depth like Shea.
Since gate-crashing into parliament, Shea has made it a point to speak without thinking many a times.
Last week he was frothing at the mouth after the Sunday Express wrote that MPs were going to get a quarter of their hefty gratuities after serving only two years in parliament.
I am told he was almost choking with anger, accusing the reporter of sexing up the story to tarnish parliament’s image.
And he wanted the reporter kicked out of parliament.
But you don’t need to consult a sangoma to understand why Shea was crying crimson tears over that story.
Shea likes to make hay while the sun shines.
Oops, sorry, I wanted to say he likes to make money before he has made any sensible contribution in parliament.
Never mind even after years his contribution might still be zilch.
He doesn’t like people who interfere when he is eating and he doesn’t want people to hear it when he is burping.
I understand why.
You might wonder why Shea might like eating so much.
Well, unlike other MPs who have bulging tummies, Shea’s belly is still relatively flat.
He sure has some catching up to do when it comes to this bulging tummy business that is so prevalent in our august House.
The Sunday Express was therefore “wrong” because its report was interfering with his “chowing”.
The reporter should have known better that you can only disturb an eating Shea at you own peril.
But what makes it even worse is that unlike most of the MPs, Shea has neither a constituency nor a single vote to his name.
He is not answerable to any voter.
But if you think that is supposed to make him happy then you are wrong.
You see, Shea has been watching in horror while the hardworking MPs who have constituencies to work for have been growing tummies while he — the one who has neither a constituency nor a voter to work for — has remained with a small belly.
He does so little for his luxurious living but still the belly has remained stuck where it was three years ago.
But there is more to Shea’s anger.
He is in parliament because his party, the LWP, formed an illegal alliance with the ABC and he found himself top on the PR seats.
Because he owes no single voter an explanation, he is in parliament to eat.
He eats sitting allowances, salaries, those huge interest-free loans and now the early gratuities.
To justify his eating Shea has to convince those who put his name top on the PR list that they did not make a mistake.
He has to compensate for his lack of constituency by waffling endlessly in parliament.
He is battling for relevance.
Scrutator knows Shea is going to hit the roof again next week after he reads this but she doesn’t care.
Shea must tell us whose interests he represents in parliament apart from his own.
He must tell Scrutator how many people voted for him in February 2007.
While at it, he must also stop bullying reporters for a living.
In the same vein, he must work hard to grow up.
And by the way, unlike the reporter Shea bullied last week, Scrutator doesn’t suffer fools.
This girl can fight!
Could Speaker of Parliament Ntlhoi Motsamai have been talking about people like Shea when she complained last week about MPs who just can’t keep their mouths shut in parliament?
“I get embarrassed all the time,” Motsamai said.
“The noise during business is unacceptable. It brings shame to this House especially when we have school children as visitors.
“Are we expecting those children to listen to their teachers when they have seen their grandfathers and grandmothers, fathers and mothers not concentrating in the House?”
I happen to understand what my big sister is dealing with.
It’s not funny.
The last time I passed through that place I was shocked.
There were howls of laughter, screams of anger and shrills of joy.
It is probably the noisiest place I have ever been since I left high school.
But there was one distinct sound that really caught my attention and I am sure Motsamai is also worried about it.
I mean that irritating sound that people make when they are sleeping.
Is it called snoring?
I listened in shock this week when some businessmen went ballistic on local radio attacking this newspaper for daring to tell it like it is.
In fact, the businessmen were mad over some poster that captured the essence of some story carried by this paper last week.
I was shocked by the venom and anger directed at the newspaper.
They accused the Lesotho Times of being pro-government and pushing a government agenda.
They even claimed government ministers have shares in the newspaper!
My foot!
But my biggest worry was when they began to allow themselves to be entangled in some xenophobic vitriol against makwerekwere!
What kind of world are these people living in?
Where do they get the guts, in this day and age, to use such detestable words about fellow human beings?
How could the world have moved so fast from that kind of thinking that it left them trapped in that time-warp?
I will not dignify their absurdity by regurgitating what they said on private radio stations.
