| O |
NCE in a while there comes a time when the pipedreams of a very few misdirected people skip the queue on the national agenda queue to find a place right on the top drawer of the issues that people should really be concerned about.
That is precisely what happened with the newly formed African Unity Movement (AUM)’s launch last week.
Its agenda was bigger than the party’s launch event.
That, of course, was always bound to happen in a country where political parties mushroom every day like squatter camps in South Africa.
In a country where there is a general dearth of fresh political ideas it was always expected that AUM’s political agenda would receive more attention than its launch.
Scrutator, like many others, had held her breath hoping the new party was going to bring something new and fresh on our political menu that is so full of stale and tasteless dishes.
Hope is what she needed but hokum is what she got, and in truckloads too.
The AUM does not make it a secret that it seeks to sell this country for 30 pieces of silver.
They want Lesotho to be a province of South Africa, a country that thinks it’s prospering when nearly 50 percent of its people live in abject poverty, have more hovels than homes and the conscience of its political leaders is as small as the punctuation mark at the end of this sentence (not that ours have anything larger than that).
| T |
he AUM says there must be free border movement before the two countries become a unitary state.
It gets their goat that Lesotho is completely surrounded by South Africa.
To their credit they, at least, stand for something: they passionately want to be South Africans.
For once we have politicians who have a clearer agenda apart from getting into power and plundering our national resources.
Scrutator’s qualms with the AUM is that its founders come across as deeply misdirected individuals who think the answers to our problems as a nation lie in surrendering our hard fought independence instead of working hard to change that which makes us a poverty stricken little country.
They come across as cowards that seek cover in history and the mantras of pragmatism when the going gets tough.
They say they see no reason why Lesotho should be a country as if Lesotho needs to justify to them why it is a country in the first place.
They say there should be free border movement as if there are snipers on our borders waiting to kill anyone who dares cross into South Africa with a valid passport.
They say little Lesotho should join South Africa as if it’s a new Canaan, a land of milk and honey.
The AUM is a weird political party for it seeks to do what no other party has done: to get power and surrender the right to self-rule to another sovereign state.
They want to be a government so they have the legitimacy to negotiate the price of this country with South African.
It is an astounding agenda.
AUM is saying make us the government so we can temporarily run this country before we become a provincial government in South Africa.
For those reasons alone Scrutator will not waste her breathe discussing the pros and cons of Lesotho merging with South Africa because that will be as good as promoting mere gossip into a national debate.
| T |
here is no reason to waste mental power by discussing such delusional ideas concocted by self-serving individuals who have confirmed that there are sell-outs.
It is a waste of time to accord their agenda even a “to-be-discussed” status because it is a dream that its current purveyors and like-minded generations will never live.
The discussion should be about how we can improve this economy of ours that has been gnarled from within by corruption, nepotism, indolence, cronyism, incompetence and plain recklessness.
It should be about what we can do for ourselves as a country and not what others can do for us.
Those that want to be South Africans are free to cross the border and live there.
South Africans who really want to be Basotho, I doubt if there are any, can cross the border into Lesotho.
The AUM will see how so 18th century their agenda is when we go to the election in 2012.
| B |
asotho have built a notorious reputation as big cheaters.
We cheat our partners left, right and centre.
“Eating out” has become a national sport.
If office walls had eyes I am convinced they would tell tales, tales of carpet interviews, late Friday jaunts, etc.
But most worryingly, we also cheat the taxman.
Just last week, that big tax cheater of them all, Osman Moosa, who was convicted of tax evasion, was back in the news.
For those not in the know Moosa was found guilty of ‘creative accounting’ by fidgeting with his books and leaving the Lesotho Revenue Authority with a big dent in its pocket.
But the man has no shame.
Instead of showing contrition and going on all fours asking for forgiveness, he is still battling against all logic to remain at the helm of the Private Sector Foundation of Lesotho.
He also has the cheek to appeal to the High Court arguing he needs more time to pay his M4 million fine.
Moosa is fighting, kicking and screaming to remain at the helm of the foundation.
But the dodger must admit that he has dirty hands and do the honourable thing and step down unless he is now suffering from the “I will not go” syndrome that normally afflicts our politicians on the African continent.
In that case he will be dragged from that chair, screaming and screeching!
Ache!
scrutator29@gmail.com
