Muckraker

Season of silliness

Published

7 years ago

March 17, 2017

MUCKRAKER has heard a sorry story of a senior politician who is donating shoes to poor villagers. He says he is doing it out of his goodness of the heart yet we all know he is begging for votes.

Sadly, his party has squandered so much political capital that it’s no longer electable. We are getting to a time when it might be considered illegal or a sign of mental sickness to support his party. His party has been buried in an avalanche of political propaganda. Now voters speak of it with twisted faces full of disgust. You know the face you have when chewing ginger.
Or the face most women have when they try to fit in by trying to drink a wine they have never tasted. Or the face of a villager tasting cheese for the first time.

Muckraker wonders if his effort to cover the cracked feet of the poor villagers will change his waning political fortunes. Voters have long concluded that his is a party of thievery and other terrible things. He could donate thousands of shoes but still lose.

Yet that is not how it should be. Surely when you give a man shoes he should just be grateful enough to repay you with his votes. As it turns out, the problem with this politician is that he is being advised by slow minds. There is a way to make sure those who get his shoes don’t betray him when they enter the voting booth. The solution lies in keeping the voter dependent on him.

The only way to do that is to donate one shoe per voter. Give each villager the left shoe and promise to return with the right shoe when you have won the election.
If they vote the ‘wrong’ way they will be stuck with one shoe.

And there is no way they can make a plan because they will all be having shoes for the same side. Phew!
Sometimes all you need is a little bit of common sense. Now say “Thank you aunt Muck”.

Muckraker wishes Size Two a speedy recovery. That is if reports that he is under the weather are correct. He was probably just going for a scheduled medical check-up.
We should not have qualms with that for the man has seen better days.
Any body over 50 should be constantly checked for defects.

It is Size Two’s right to take care of the body that works his money. For him medical check-ups are even more important because of the torrid time he has experienced since he insisted on coming out of retirement.

The man had never been allowed to rest since 2015. From the first day he was fire- fighting. At some point it looked like he had been sent to put out a raging fire with his saliva.
General K gave him a headache, SADC gave him nightmares and the opposition was sitting on him like a tonne of bricks.

Meanwhile Mokola was up to some high jinks. The Americans kept the fire on his behind ablaze. Then there was the economy that just refused to start and the hunger that camped in the villagers because of drought.

He had just gone from tending his camels to handling hot national issues. So bear with the man when he takes some time off to see his doctor. Go slow on the rumour mongering, Size Two is just fine.

What we should question is why he has to cross the border to see a doctor as if we live in some remote village.
Not that we are really a modern country. But we do have doctors here and a hospital that cost us M1 billion to build.

Unless this was a special medical case there is absolutely no reason for Size Two to cross the border to see a doctor.
The point here is that he should have faith in the health system his government has created. It is his government that hires doctors, nurses and buys medicines.
The least he can do is experience what everyone else has to endure when they visit the so-called government hospitals.

Until you spend a day waiting to see a doctor at Tsepong you will not understand why people are pissed with that hospital. Until a nurse tells you they have run out of a painkiller you will not understand why people are bitter with government hospitals.

Size Two should have just gone to a government hospital for his check-up if he thinks Basotho are being squeaky wheels.
Muckraker wonders if he would have driven or flown all the way to Johannesburg if he was paying from his pocket.

The election season is upon us. It is the season of madness. The season of silliness. Get ready to be entertained, wowed and disgusted at the same time. Prepare to gobble the unpalatable lies our politicians will foist on you.

Take heart for a cyclone of propaganda has come to our shores. To survive it you should have a strong sense of humour and a functioning tosh detector. Anything short of those will leave you bruised.

While waiting for the political drama of elections to start Muckraker had stopped paying her DStv subscriptions.
Nothing beats Lesotho’s political theatre when it comes to entertainment. The problem now is that the drama is taking too long to start.
So Muckraker has to resort to our pathetic radio stations for fun.

Unfortunately these days there isn’t much to enjoy on radio because political parties have taken over every programme. For three weeks now we have been bombarded with the same old bunkum about there being no money for the elections. Where is the money, they ask. How will we fund the election?

There is no money for elections. There is no budget for the elections. Blah, blah and blah. None of those running their mouths on the radio stations seem to understand anything about government finances. The blabbermouths cannot even manage their own finances yet they have the nerve to pretend to be experts on the national budget.

The biggest ignoramuses are the illiterate MPs who keep harping on about this money issue as if it will resurrect the 9th parliament.
Impressionable minds are being fed the same old discredited BS that there is no money for elections.

Now listen carefully you small minds hurting our ears with the mumbo jumbo. Government money is not kept in a tattered bra like your grandmother’s pennies. It is not kept under a pillow or an old tin under a bed.

The absence of a budget does not mean there is no money. A budget is not money but a mere list of things you want to do with the money. So an election is going to happen in this country on June 3.

MPs should worry about where they will find money after losing the elections instead of having sleepless nights about where the money for the elections will come from.
After June 3 the government will still have money but you might just be as poor as a church mouse.

Muckraker

The not so noble Ashraf

Published

3 days ago

September 22, 2023

The Post

English has never been our mother. It abandons us in times of trouble, especially when cornered. The best time to judge a person’s eloquence in English is when they are in distress. Walim Ashraf, the man accused of stealing M7.4 million, lost his English bundles last week when he was caught in a blue lie.

His bail hearing was going well until a DCEO investigator told the prosecutor that he was emitting lies with a straight face. He had told the court that his three children and wife were in South Africa. He even added that children were schooling in South Africa. That sounded plausible and the court appeared to have taken his word for it until the prosecutor announced that his wife and three children were in fact in India. Bingo!

Caught in the lie, Ashraf mumbled an apology before telling the court that “it was a slip of the tongue”.
In other words, his tongue has slipped and called South Africa India.

At that moment, Ashraf believed that claiming that your family is in South Africa when they are in India is a “slip of the tongue”.

The phrase he was looking for is: “I am a pathetic liar”. A slip of the tongue is a minor mistake in speech, not a fictitious relocation of your family from India to South Africa. Muckraker will not pass judgement on his charges.

Suffice to say Ashraf is an Arabic name meaning ‘most honourable one’ or ‘very noble’. Tongues that claim to have slipped when they are lying are not so noble.

Nka! Ichuuuuuuuuuuuu

muckracker.post@gmail.com

Muckraker

Its squeaky bum time

Published

3 days ago

September 22, 2023

The Post

Uncle Sam and his leadership should not be surprised that the opposition is now grabbing them by the collar. They played into the government’s hands by making hasty and emotional decisions.

The suspension of the three MPs has now triggered a backlash that might topple the government.
The opposition is smelling blood and getting ready to pounce.

Even if Uncle Sam’s government survives the next storm, the opposition will keep coming. They are possessed by the spirit of destruction.
The next few years will be tsunami after tsunami.
Nothing motivates a politician more than the prospect of finishing off a wounded opponent.
Muckraker is tempted to say the RFP still has a chance to regroup and fight from one corner but that would be false. The trust has been broken and the wounds are too deep.

Those who have been suspended want revenge. Mediation is a waste of time. Nothing is ever forgiven and forgotten in politics.
Muckraker’s humble advice to Uncle Sam and his people is that they should stock up on painkillers because there are more pounding headaches on the way.
Keep some pills at home, office, office toilet, back pocket, handbag, wallet and even bra.

Mapesela will not rest until he is back in government and proudly messing up things.
He is beating war drums.
Uncle Sam and his people had better learn to play dirty because this is a rough game. Bones will be broken and bodies bruised.

Nka! Ichuuuuuuuuuuuu

muckracker.post@gmail.com

Muckraker

Rough riders

Published

3 days ago

September 22, 2023

The Post

Spare a prayer for Uncle Sam as he walks on the glowing coals that is Lesotho’s politics. Call your prophets, fake and real, because the demons of Lesotho’s politics are at the gates.

Bring both fire and water because these are not Mickey Mouse demons. Leave the pigs out of this one, I beg. We still need fariki after exorcising the evil spirits. As usual, you need the powers of a potent wizard to decipher why the opposition is gathering wood for a pyre to burn both the government and its leader. That it’s such a hotchpotch betrays the fact that the reasons are contrived rather than real.

Even if they are real, none of them justifies toppling a government so soon.
And none of the opposition leaders could claim, without the usual dose of embellishment, that the so-called ‘reasons’ have come from the people. There is no scale to weigh the people’s disgust at Uncle Sam and his people.

There is no reason to pretend that those plotting to whip Uncle Sam out of office are doing it for the people who voted less than a year ago. This is just another group of excitable and power-mongering zealots cooking up reasons to justify their attempt to instigate a power grab.

You hear from their flawed logic when they exuberantly claim that it is their right to bring a no-confidence vote against the government.
They pull out that trump card even when no one has accused them of any criminality. They do it to sanitise and deodorise their brazen usurpation of the people’s power.
It’s their way of justifying why a group of less than 50 people who lost an election now has both the power and the nerve to topple a government supported by thousands of Basotho. Oops, that’s a lie. This a decision of less than 10 political leaders who are now shopping around for other MPs to support their decision.
Yes, toppling a government in parliament is not illegal. Yes, the opposition can do it. But the pertinent question is whether this is what Basotho want and it’s good for Lesotho.

Who has told the politicians that this is what the people want? Who did they consult, when and how?
Yes, Uncle Sam is fumbling and dithering. Yes, some of his ministers behave like rabbits caught in headlights on the Main North 1 Road. True, some of the appointments stink of nepotism.
But all these are nothing new or outrageous. We have seen worse from the very people now screaming their lungs out. It’s not as if the opposition now has a low tolerance for tosh.

After all, they are the very masters of tosh. This is not about service delivery or some transgressions.
This is about power and resources. Not power to serve Basotho. Not resources to share with Basotho. It is about the power to shove in their armpits while they munch the resources. That is why they keep telling us what Uncle Sam has done wrong instead of saying why they think they will do better.
They are not saying they will screw us softly this time around. No promise to go easy on the looting. Nothing about limiting the number of rats in the granary. They don’t even have the decency to promise to move from F to E.

As far as they are concerned, we just have to stand by and watch while they kick out Uncle Sam and then cheer as they march back to do more of the same. This is the contempt they have for the people. We elect governments that MPs have the power to topple willy-nilly while claiming to be acting on our behalf. We have been screwed before but these are rough riders. Phew!

Nka! Ichuuuuuuuuuuuu

muckracker.post@gmail.com