Samson Moyo Guma may have found it difficult justifying his departure from the BMD.
But his reconnecting with Ian Khama should be decidedly easy.
The two of them are businessmen at heart.
Guma says he will never rejoin the BDP, but nobody believes him.
That nobody believes what he says must be the most painful thing in Guma’s life today.
His stint in politics is perhaps the most glaring embodiment of how true it holds that money does not bring happiness.
He has loads of money, but has the money given him any peace of mind?
My answer is no, at least not when it comes to his life in politics.
If anything, his pursuit of money has brought him more misery as to ultimately cut short his political career.
But there is a solution, well known to government, to Guma and others, but it turns out totally unacceptable to all of them.
The solution lies in our leaders declaring their assets and their interests.
For as long as our leaders refuse to pass a law on assets declaration, the public mistrust will continue.
Moyo’s difficult stay in politics can very easily be traced to an absence of a law compelling our leaders to declare their assets.
Were there such a law in place, things would be so different for Moyo.
Unlike all the others with whom he bolted out of the ruling party and went on to create the BMD, Moyo’s troubles were never with President Ian Khama.
Rather, they were with Vice President Mompati Merafhe.
The Vice President was present at a meeting that effectively sacked Moyo from cabinet as assistant minister of finance.
When a decision was taken that Moyo would have to leave cabinet as he awaited his day in court, Moyo came to a single conclusion that it was the Vice President, not the President who had effectively sacked him from cabinet.
His only gripe with Ian Khama was that the President had not done much to stand up for him against the Vice President.
Even before his unceremonious sacking from cabinet, Moyo’s long running battles with the Vice President had become legendary.
Specifically, he was pained by the rough tackling he had received from the Vice President over the appointment of a BDC Managing Director.
As acting Minister of Finance when Baledzi Gaolathe was at the time away in hospital, Moyo watched in helpless anguish as he almost lost a spirited tussle with the Vice President over the appointment of Managing Director of Botswana Development Corporation. Khama was away in the United States.
Crucially for him, on this particular incident when the President came back he sided with Moyo against the Vice President ÔÇô perhaps the only time to ever do so.
But Khama’s seal of approval over the BDC top post mattered very little. There was already blood on the floor.
Not only was Moyo by now a marked man, his position inside the BDP had become untenable.
It is not an exaggeration that, politically, Moyo Guma has been a victim of his commercial success.
It is also not a coincidence that BDC is a multi-billion pula honey pot for Botswana’s business interests.
By refusing to pass a law on the declaration of assets our leaders are unintentionally making commercial success and politics mutually exclusive.
By refusing to pass such a law, our politicians have effectively placed themselves outside the loop of those that mean a lot to the electorate.
Tragically, our politicians just do not seem to get it.
And they wonder just how it is that the people do not trust them.
Without such a law, those who have already made it financially will be scared of going into politics for fear of attracting the now almost inevitable public envy.
But should it as of fate be like that?
I do not think so. But then so it should remain for as long as there is no transparency.
Never a man to shy away from speaking his mind, Moyo has also very much been a victim of unfairness as he has been that of his temperamental exuberance as well as a weakness to make big decisions in the spell of either anger or excitement.
He strikes me as a man who is naturally impatient with those that do not always agree with him.
This I suspect has nothing to with his success in making money. I suppose it’s the way he was born, and would still be like that even if he were a destitute.
It is a human weakness that he is better advised to work on.
But then where does Moyo’s departure leave BMD?
While as a party BMD’s life is not palpably threatened by Moyo’s departure, it would be irresponsible denialism trying to run away from the fact that for many months Moyo has been one of the party’s benefactors.
He played a key role in raising money for the party leader when there were risks of foreclosure.
The fact that BMD was also able to have business people of Moyo’s caliber brought in some semblance of seriousness in it.
His departure is a public relations dent that BMD will have to confront ÔÇô and the sooner the better!
Could the party have seen it coming?
I think all the signals were there.
Ever since he declined to stand for the position of National Treasurer, the party has been actively bracing for a life without him.
The accusation that he left BMD because of pressure from his business associates linked to BDP may not be true.
But as a politician, Guma should stop being a cry baby and face the truth that public perceptions are often stronger than reality ÔÇô more so in politics than in any public vocation.
In politics, business success engenders a deep mistrust. It is the case everywhere, but worse in Botswana where politicians are hiding their wealth.
While at BDP, did he not have to put up with spurious allegations of corruption that ultimately cost him a job as assistant Minister of Finance?
Perhaps Guma should spend whatever remains of his life in politics fighting for a law the absence of which has been at the centre of his miserable political career.
