By Dan Nkosi
I have a friend and former colleague who oozes boldness and directness. He has a pet admonition that he unleashes to everyone who he sees as indecisive and tentative in approaching situations.
“You are the kind that wants to paint a room and emerge without a drop of paint on them. Have you already paid all the premiums to the one who must die for you the day your day comes?”
This brings me to the way our president, and by extension, his Cabinet operates. When soldiers were released to help police during the first lockdown, every time people were found breaching the regulations and laws of the country, instead of having them apprehended, one would hear a minister saying, in a quest for popularity and appeasement to the people in breach: “it is not our intention to criminalise our people”.
The question is, why enact laws and regulations if you are not intending to enforce them and throw the law book at those who contravene them? The end effect of this timidity and “nanny-state” approach to leadership is that respect and regard for the law becomes blunted.
Governing with more than half of one’s mind glued on the next election robs one of the ability to lead decisively and ethically.
It should be known that if police see someone breaching the law or regulation, they will be before a court of law, if they do not pay an admission of guilt fine.
I hear someone saying: “People are poor, where will they get money for the fines?” There is no fine payable by anyone who complies with a well-publicised regulation or law that aims to save lives.
Lawlessness and good regard for the law are achieved in small, piecemeal acts, over time. You do not encourage and promote one, and hope to achieve the other. This is how the rule of law has been established everywhere else, where the rule of law reigns – a lockdown means people stay in their homes when ordered.
Police and officials from the Department of Health should pay sporadic visits to businesses, including supermarkets and not only check the abysmal compliance with the wearing of masks by managers, staff and customers and take action as well as test the compliance of the sanitisers being sprayed onto people’s hands at the entrances.
The government continues to be indecisive, tentative, unsure and too scared to govern. Meanwhile, everything collapses.