“What do you think of the committee of dinosaurs?” chimed the voice on the other side of the line.
Frankly speaking, I had no idea what my friend at the University of Botswana was talking about.
Before I could conjure up an answer he went at length to stick a knife into the extent to which the current administration had run out of ideas.
He was particularly scathing that former Vice President, Ponatshego Kedikilwe had rejoined the public service under the auspices of a vaguely defined presidential inspectorate that would coordinate government projects.
As Chairman of that inspectorate, Kedikilwe is joined by Jonnie Swartz, Gaotlhaetse Matlhabaphiri, Peter Siele and a few retired and sacked former senior government officials.
Before he lost elections in 2014, Swartz was the longest serving cabinet minister.
If my memory is correct, Matlhabaphiri has been in both parliament and cabinet (on and off) since the 1980s. Like Swartz he lost an election in 2014.
Siele’s ill-fated career in politics was preceded by an otherwise successful civil service career ÔÇô reaching its pinnacle during his time as Establishment Secretary.
In short the Kedikilwe led inspectorate is made up of men and women who have all lived past their prime, all of who would in their little private spaces have looked at themselves in varying levels of contentment at how their individual ships had sailed past with each one of them now ominously glaring at the fast approaching twilights, not of their careers but their lives.
But here they are ÔÇô back in the civil service, to solve one of the hardest and most intractable problems of our time ÔÇô coordinating government projects.
I have always had a soft spot for Kedikilwe but I must confess that I find it impossible to defend him on this one.
Exactly what could have been going in head when he agreed to come out of retirement and rejoin the civil service remains a big mystery.
No matter how strong his sense of public duty, he should have politely turned down the offer and instead suggested a name among his many prot├®g├®s who he felt was best suited for the assignment.
By agreeing to rejoin the public serve PHK risks undoing whatever legacy he has created for himself during a career spanning over fifty of public service.
There is a high probability that he will end up in a blind alley ÔÇô very much like Ken Matambo ÔÇô the Minister of Finance, whose ill-advised temptation to join politics has literally torn into pieces what had before then been a glaringly outstanding public serve career.
Kedikilwe’s decision to rejoin the public service will change how people, including his admirers will henceforth look at him.
Already his decision is forcing the nation to re-evaluate his record as a public servant.
Specifically his decision has re-ignited a public debate over the troubled Morupule B ÔÇô a multibillion Pula power station that hit the walls under his watch while he was minister responsible for energy.
That debate is veering towards the water crisis that the country is grappling with ÔÇô which also reared its ugly head when he was the minister responsible for water.
And this is not by any measure a charitable debate.
There are whispers that some members of Kedikilwe’s inspectorate had literally camped on the doorstep of President Ian Khama’s office nagging him to deploy him in the diplomatic service like he has done with some of his friends; David Newman who is now in Washington, Lebonaamang Mokalake who is in Lusaka and of course Roy Blackbeard who is permanently domiciled in London.
While that is reprehensible enough, Kedikilwe’s committee demonstrates something much bigger than giving jobs to palls.
Cobbling up a committee of people that have gone past their prime brings up images of a future that is devoid of optimism.
Just what can these people – these dinosaurs – to borrow a word from my frie
nd at the University of Botswana, deliver now that they could not deliver during their long times in office proper?
The problems that the country faces today are more complex and intricate than those that members of this committee had to grapple with in the past ÔÇô with little discernible success.
To ordinary Batswana the appointment of this committee is a glaring example of life’s inherent unfairness and more importantly their government’s helplessness and even complicity in it all.
It is a demonstration of how patronage has become in our public discourse.
For Kedikilwe’s admirers this is as painful as it is puzzling.
Just how does their hero who has always eschewed patronage in all its forms now allow himself to become the defacto public face of cronyism consuming this administration? There are no answers to all these questions!
The makeup of Kedikilwe’s inspectorate signals a much bigger test that our country is going to have to face.
We are now reaching a stage when people start to feel that they have to take matters into their hands for them to effect change.
For any country that is a scary moment because it is a time when only demagogues thrive and begin to take charge as all sense is put in the backburners.
History is replete with such moments. It happened in the Nazi Germany under Hitler. Commentators are beginning to suspect that the rise of Donald J. Trump in the United States is very much a result of such public helplessness and also the unfairness and unwillingness of the establishment to accept people from outside its own ranks.
