“Our commitment to equitable access has informed our approach of prioritizing engagement with national governments to ensure a coordinated national and international approach. Throughout 2020 and ongoing in 2021, we continue to only work with government, to supply vaccines. Currently, there is no authorised private distributor of our vaccine worldwide. The quality and efficacy of any vaccine moving through any non-authorised channels cannot be assured and should be viewed as suspect potentially putting lives at risk.”
The above statement has been derived from a letter written to Botswana Government by an official and represented of Pfizer Laboratories in South Africa which caters for sub-Saharan Africa. This letter has helped to put the issue of private procurement of vaccines by the SKI Khama Foundation to rest.
The moment I saw the correspondence from the organization, I could read a great amount of malice in between the lines. This was an offer made in hell. If the Masisi government refused the offer, it was going to discredit the state. At the same time if government accepted the offer, that would reveal how weak the apparatus of the state are. This was a catch 22 factor.
This offer was craftily designed to put the government of the day on the spotlight. Until the above letter surfaced, public opinion on the issue was highly divided and most people were calling for government to set aside the known differences of the county’s president and his predecessor.
From this recent development, it has become crystal clear that Khama wanted to spite government with this void offer. In fact it is going to take a while before public perception is reset to what it is supposed to be regarding the purchase of vaccines. In Serowe, villagers are already spreading falls statements such as, “Gatwe Masisi o gana go laisa melemo e e rekilweng ke Khama. This in the colloquial can be translated to mean; Masisi is refusing to load the medicines procured by Khama.
It seems Khama takes pleasure in spitting on his successors leadership. Masisi has to keep on looking over his shoulder to check on the next machinations of Khama. If anyone had tried this during the latter’s rule, we all know what the outcome would have been.
Let us be reminded of Khama’s response to the approaches of two former presidents, Masire and Mogae who wanted to bring sanity to the Khama government regarding the industrial strike of 2011. Khama clearly told the two former presidents to get off. He cited that he did not want any interference in his government. Further to that, he told the two that they were creating alternative centres of power.
No one could dare Khama and we all know it. But the man has so much insatiable appetite for power that he fiddles with his hands on anything that resembles power. Why didn’t Khama approach the government and reference them to their supposed supplier and contact?
If this idea was really hatched on the principle of patriotism, there wouldn’t have been any need for publishing the letter on social media. Right from his days at BDF, Khama always wanted to maintain a very high level of secrecy on just anything.
A certain Major Matlapeng challenged his authority by contesting against the unethical and unprocedural purchase of the SK105 medium tank from Austria. Matlapeng stood his ground on a matter of principle and for that he lost his job and there has not been any retribution for this brave man.
It seems Khama is thirsty for such lucrative procurements and hence the order connected to his friends overseas. The man has grown tired of being in the background and this is why he has brought forth such a controversial and divisive issue.
Like Kabo Morwaeng says, this issue is purely political. This is why Khama’s party, Botswana Patriotic Front has gone as far as asking questions in parliament regarding this matter. They have also asked a question in parliament regarding the status of Sonny Serite at CEDA and the process used to contract him.
Does Khama understand anything ethical about procurement? The answer is no! Otherwise we wouldn’t be having a graveyard of military equipment filling the cemetery equipment at BDF.
It is the Scorpion reconnaissance tank, the SK105, Bedford trucks and the list is endless. The list of the men that he fired without any semblance of dignity will take a year to type on this laptop computer.
For years after Khama’s departure from the political stage, I decided to allow him his retirement by withdrawing my criticism to the King of Botswana. But the man has failed to become a statesman and is now reigniting his troublemaking tricks. I hope this does not attract me permanently to be his critic. Enough is enough!
In June I wrote on this column an article titled, “Dangers of Creating Two Centres of Power.” Khama needs to be told that it is not in the best interest of the country for him to be engaged on those efforts. This is a man who is clearly living in his own past. It seems the man will not rest until he goes into his final resting place.
Finding vaccines for this country without engaging the government at an initial stage is tantamount to creating an alternative centre of power. The five day deadline was by all measure aimed at proving the government of the day to be ineffective and not caring about the lives of the citizens.
Now that Pfizer has come to our rescue, we all wonder what will be next in the barrage of tricks in Khama’s sleeve. Someone needs to tell this man that we have had enough of the drama and he must come off the stage.
In fact this issue had unsettled government until the right information came forth. And what was the cost of this investigation in terms of money and time? It took an assistant minister to write to Pfizer and wait for the reply while the country was continually tossed into chaos and confusion.
