Question Time

Question Time

Friday night on the box is the Vice-President’s Question Time, starring Dotty Scotty as the hapless foot-in-mouth Leader of the House…

Speaker: I call upon the Honourable Member for Buka Buka.

Hon. Member for Buka Buka: Mr Speaker Sir, I rise to ask the Honourable Vice-President whether it is in order for the government to require opposition MPs to seek permission from the DC and the police before visiting their own constituencies?

Dotty Scotty: Mr Speaker Sir, if honourable members of the opposition wish to avoid this inconvenience, all they have to do is to join the ruling party. If the Honourable Member for Buka Buka would care to accept an appointment as a deputy minister, the government will provide him with a mansion and a chauffeur driven Mercedes for each of his concubines. Then he will be able to live like a king in Lusaka, and never again feel the slightest temptation to visit his constituency. All his problems will be over.

Hon. Member for Buka Buka: Mr Speaker Sir, is it in order for the honourable Vice-President to bribe me with the offer of a ministerial position?

Dotty Scotty: Mr Speaker Sir, I am grievously hurt that my well intended offer to allow the honourable member to serve his country has been so dreadfully misconstrued. Therefore my offer is withdrawn.

(General cheering and cries of ‘With immediate effect’)

Speaker: I call upon the Honourable Member for Namwanka.

Honourable Member: Does the Honourable Leader of the House have any explanation on why the Ndola Trade Fair had only 13 visitors this year, which is severely down from last year’s figure of 438,214?

Dotty Scotty: This disappointing result is due to this government’s diligent attention to the rule of law. Unfortunately the organizers of the Trade Fair had omitted to apply for a police permit to hold a public gathering, and therefore, under the requirements of the Public Order Act, the police had no choice except to close it down. Previously the opposition had claimed that the application of this Act was selective and partisan, so I am sure that the opposition will now be particularly pleased to see that in this case the application of the Act affected people of all political affiliation, age, gender, tribe and religion. I am sure the opposition would therefore wish to congratulate the government on this fair minded and even handed application of the law.

Honourable Member for Namwanka: Can his Honour the Vice-President please inform the House of the fate of the 13 people who managed to get into the show?

Dotty Scotty: Having failed to raise bail of K10m each, they are being held in remand prison until trial, hopefully before the end of next year. In such matters the government is keen to respect the independence of the judiciary, so nothing more can be said on that score.

Speaker: I call upon the Honourable Member for Chongololo.

Honourable Member: Prior to the general election of 2011, the ruling party promised that they would introduce the Freedom of Information Bill within 90 days. What has happened to this promise?

Dotty Scotty: This government always keeps its promises, and the government will soon put this Bill before parliament.

(cries of ‘When? When? When?’)

Dotty Scotty: When? When? I sometimes wonder whether my right honourable friends on the opposition benches are deaf. As I have already said, and as ruling party has always promised, the Bill will be presented within 90 days. I don’t know what more I can say.

Honourable Member for Chongololo: If I may ask a follow-up question on the freedom of information, when may we expect the president to hold his first press conference?

Dotty Scotty: I am somewhat taken aback by the lack of logic in this question, since the Honourable Member for Chongololo has himself just reminded this August House that the Freedom of Information Act has not yet been passed. Obviously, until this Act is passed, everything that the president says must remain confidential, which rules out any possibility of a press conference.

Honourable Member for Chongololo: When is this press conference likely to take place?

(Cries of ‘Within 90 days!’ from all sides of the House)

Dotty Scotty: I am pleased to observe that the Honourable Member for Chongololo seems to be the only member present who does not know the answer to his question!

Speaker: I call upon the Honourable Member for Sukulu.

Honourable Member: The Honourable Minister for Education has banned private tuition in order to maintain a level playing field in government schools. But is there a level playing field when all the ministers’ children attend private schools?

Dotty Scotty: Mr Speaker Sir, it is patently absurd for the honourable member to claim that all the ministers’ children are in private schools when no man can be sure how many children he has fathered, let alone which schools they are attending.

Speaker: I should caution members to come to this house with factual and verifiable information.

Honourable Minister for Chibuku: Mr Speaker, Sir, At last I have some important and verifiable information. The time is now 16.00h, and the Members Bar is now open.

(There is a mad scramble for the door, and Dotty Scotty is left alone, wagging his wobbly chin at the empty Debating Chamber)    

Parliamentary Fraud

Department of Parliamentary Fraud

PROCUREMENT OF PARLIAMENTARY SEATS:

INVITATION TO TENDER

Introduction

By virtue of powers given under the Destruction of Parliament Act of 1823, and in conformity with the procedures of the Prostitutes Procurement Procedure of 1867, the Department of Parliamentary Fraud (otherwise and hereinafter referred to as the PF) is hereby issuing this Invitation to Tender for the supply of Parliamentary Seats to the PF.

This Invitation to Tender is offered in pursuance of the PF Policy to extend development to those constituencies which previously refused to give their parliamentary seats to the PF. However, in its benevolent desire to develop all of the country, the PF is now undertaking a policy of buying these seats in order to end unnecessary division in the nation and to bring about peace, national unity and development to all constituencies.

A contract to supply a parliamentary seat to the ruling PF may be given to any opposition member of parliament where the tendered amount for selling the seat is deemed reasonable by the Procurement Atrocity, and where the opposition member (otherwise and hereinafter referred to as the Prospective Supplier) meets the specifications set out hereinunder:

Goods and Personnel to be Supplied:

·      One green leather seat in parliament

·      One opposition member of parliament

·      At least one thousand opposition party defectors

It should be noted that opposition voters’ cards are considered an added advantage.

Description of Personal Services to be provided by the Prospective Supplier:

·      Standing as PF candidate*

·      Supervision of distribution of  brown envelopes, chitenge, mealie-meal, etc

·      Subversion of local chief

·      Supervision of party thugs

·      Distribution of pangas

·      Infiltration of local ECZ officials

* In the unlikely event of election failure, the Supplier would instead be offered the post of ambassador in a foreign mission.

Required Abilities and Qualifications of the Prospective Supplier:

·      Ability to lie without blinking

·      Ability to make speeches which repeat the words of the Party Leader

·      Ability to obey the Party Leader’s instructions without question or hesitation

·      Lack of any formal qualifications (exception will be made for forged certificates)

·      Lack of any political beliefs or principles

Note: To ensure equality of opportunity, literacy is not a requirement.

Undertakings to be made by a Prospective Supplier before signing of Contract:

The Supplier must undertake:

·      Never to contradict the Party Leader

·      Never to voice a personal opinion

·      Never to tell the truth, especially when under oath

·      To support the next Constitution, irrespective of its provisions

·      Always to vote in parliament according to party instructions

If the above Conditions are met, and if the Tendered Price is acceptable, the PF will contract to:

·      Supply from the Health Budget all funds necessary to buy votes

·      Send Dotty Scotty to the by-election to make false promises

·      Upon successful election, appoint the Supplier as a Deputy Minister

·      Provide a ministerial house with a minimum of twelve toilets

·      Provide a Landcruiser GX as person-to-holder

·      Provide immunity from investigation by ACC and DEC

·      Provide employment in foreign embassies for all of the Supplier’s children

Submission of Tender Documents:

Tender documents should include specifications of the seat being made available, the details of the Prospective Supplier as outlined above, and the price at which the seat is being offered. Documents should be posted within 90 days to:

Tender for Subverting Democracy

Department of Parliamentary Fraud (PF)

Former Anti-Corruption Commission

One-Party State Pilot Project

P.O. Box 666,

Lusaka.

Signed:

Splinter Kapimbe

General Secretary,

Parliamentary Fraud (PF)

On this Fifteenth Day of May 2013

Political Cockroaches

Political Cockroaches

            ‘Your trouble is,’ said Kupela, ‘you live in an idealized world. You’re always judging government performance against how you think it ought to be. Then you get in a rage because everything is being done wrong.’

          ‘Huh!’ I snorted. ‘What a foolish thing to say. How else can things be judged, except in terms of what they ought to be?’

          ‘You should first try to understand what’s going on. All you can talk about is invisible human rights, rule of law gone missing, blah blah. You put on a wrong pair of spectacles, causing you see the things which nobody else can see, but failing to see what everybody else can see. Then you get in a rage because people can’t understand what you’re talking about, and you can’t understand what they’re talking about.’

          ‘What a way to talk to your father!’ I said sternly. ‘Me, the one that brought you up, and showed you how to understand the world! Now you claim I can’t see anything! Look around you! Do you not see what I see? Is this not the house in which you were brought up?’

          ‘Yes it is,’ said Kupela. ‘So let’s take this house as an example! Who lives here, in this house?’

          ‘You know the answer very well,’ I scoffed. ‘Since you left, there’s only me and your mother.’

          ‘A very limited point of view,’ she laughed. ‘This house is full of flies, mosquitoes, spiders, geckoes, carpet mites and thousands of cockroaches. But you, with your limited humanitarian gaze, can see only yourself and mummy.’

          ‘So is the world more understandable from the perspective of a cockroach? Can I understand the behaviour of the government by observing cockroaches?’

          ‘Well,’ said Koops, ‘since you’ve made the suggestion, let’s give it a try. After all, you are always trying to understand people in terms of rational behaviour, but the behaviour of politicians is instinctive rather than rational. More like a cockroach.

          ‘So go ahead!’ I chuckled. ‘Suppose that politicians are really huge cockroaches! What does that explain?’

          ‘It explains a new minister landing in parliament, elected by nobody but appointed by somebody, crawling in through the back door, and declaring he’s come to eat.’

          ‘I did criticize him,’ I said, ‘for saying that!’

          ‘You criticized him because you can’t understand him. You thought he’d come to render service for the benefit of the people. So you couldn’t understand what he was saying and you got yourself into a rage. If you had worn a better pair of spectacles you would have realized that he was really a huge brainless cockroach, and you would have understood his behaviour as entirely normal.’

          ‘Huh,’ I said. ‘Can your cockroach theory explain anything else?’

          ‘Ever stepped into the kitchen at night, turned on the light, and seen cockroaches crossing the floor? Parliament is just the same. Political cockroaches will always cross the floor if there’s more food on the other side.’

          ‘But they are also there to serve the people,’ I said. ‘That’s why we put them there.’

          ‘You’re wearing completely wrong spectacles,’ laughed Kupela. ‘Cockroaches want to get into government to capture the treasury, so they can sit and chew, and become monster political cockroaches, not like the half-starved little relatives who live in our houses.’

          ‘But at elections they promise us development, food, and an end to poverty.’

          ‘People think the big fat political cockroaches are talking to them, but actually they’re talking to the little domestic cockroaches who are everywhere, and listening very carefully.’

          ‘So they don’t have our interests at heart?’

          ‘We are just the useful idiots that keep the whole system working. The political economy of cockroachism works by each fat political cockroach using us to produce food and bring it into our houses, where most of it is stolen by his little relatives at the domestic level. Every fat parasitic cockroach has a billion little parasitic cockroaches feeding off him. But none of them do any work. We humans produce the food but the cockroaches eat most of it. We humans are allowed just enough food to keep us working so that we can feed the parasites.’

          ‘This theory can’t explain everything. I mean, why do we have schools and hospitals? These are provided for us humans by us humans, not for the cockroaches.’

          ‘Ha ha,’ laughed Kupela, ‘You’re really so innocent. Schools are there to brainwash us to believe that we humans are really in charge, that we live in a human-centred world, and to see these ghastly monster political cockroaches as fellow humans beings. And you, My poor Daddy, you really sucked it all in!’

          ‘Hmm, seems I was given the wrong spectacles. But what about hospitals?’

          ‘Hospitals are the main feeding centres for orphaned cockroaches. Have you never noticed that there a thousand times more cockroaches than patients in our hospitals? The walls are kept filthy to make them feel at home. But hospitals are also there to kill off the old and sick humans who are no longer fit to produce food for the cockroaches.’

          ‘So where do human rights come into this?’

          ‘Nowhere!’ she laughed. ‘This is a biological model of the political economy, and it works as a self-perpetuating and well-balanced symbiotic ecosystem. Any talk of human rights would upset the whole system, and reveal that humans are being used as slaves by parasitic cockroaches.’

          ‘Good gracious,’ I said. ‘So you really believe that this is the truth?’

          ‘Truth?’ she laughed. ‘Truth?’ she laughed again. ‘Poor old Daddy! You’ve just put on a worse pair of spectacles!’

           

           

             

Raising the Middle Finger

Raising the Middle Finger

          ‘You can go in now,’ said the secretary as she opened the door, ‘Ms Sexier is now ready for you.’

          I stepped into a darkened room, lit only by a single red light which hung over a white satin couch. And there, draped over the couch in seductive pose lay the notorious Dolly Sexier, draped in a red silk dressing gown. ‘Spectator Kalaki,’ she purred, ‘I always prefer men with lighter skins. I can always see what they’re doing in the dark. What can I do for you? What are your preferences? Come and sit here, nice and close.’

          ‘I just wanted to talk about politics,’ I said, as she nuzzled up to me.

          ‘Sex and politics, all the same thing,’ she laughed. ‘There so much politics in sex, and so much sex in politics. Which one do you want? I’m more than willing to take either position.’

          ‘I’m particularly interested in the sex in politics,’

          ‘Delightful,’ she giggled. ‘A good choice. Let’s try a bit of foreplay before we get to the heart of the matter. Which end would you like to start?’

          ‘With your middle finger,’ I said, as she fondled my beard.

          ‘Everybody enjoys my naughty middle finger,’ she chuckled, as she stuck her tongue into my ear.

          ‘I was wondering more about the finger’s meaning rather than its sexual activity,’ I said bravely, as the finger began to explore other places. ‘The whole nation is wondering what you meant when you raised your middle finger at the Speaker. Some say you were pointing at the dilapidated ceiling, telling him it needs to be repaired. Some say that you rather fancy him, and you were beckoning him to follow you to your boudoir. But others say it was a rude gesture, meaning Up Yours!’

          ‘Typical of you men,’ she sighed, ‘you are always trying to use your middle finger as a weapon to threaten us women. But if a woman dares to raise a finger at a man, he suddenly becomes frightened that the woman is trying to claim the power of his middle finger.’

          ‘Oooh,’ I said, as she ran her middle finger down my spine, ‘where is this going?’

          ‘Look,’ she said, when a woman raises her middle finger to a man it just means that she is trying to get him to stand up like a man. The poor old Speaker had gone completely soft and was a disgrace to his manhood. Instead of standing up for himself, and standing up for parliament, the silly old fellow had been behaving like a puppet in the Muppet Show, taking instructions from his puppeteer. There is nothing more pathetic than a man who can’t stand up for himself when the occasion demands. All the other men in parliament were so downcast by his inability to perform that they also failed to stand up for themselves. So I raised my middle finger, telling them to Stand Up!’

          ‘Yes,’ I said. ‘I also felt sad at how they all just curled up and shrank.’

          ‘Not like you, Kalaki,’ she said, as she gave my ear a little nibble, ‘you can stand up when the occasion demands.’

          ‘I have had my moments,’ I admitted.

          ‘I know,’ she purred. ‘We were there together.’

          ‘So where is this going, ooh, ah, …’ I spluttered.

          ‘Try to keep your mind on the interview,’ she purred. ‘We women are able to multi-task, you know.’

          ‘I know,’ I said. ‘I was distracted for a moment by your middle finger. Where is it going?’

          ‘I am going to start my own party, these men are just useless. They pretend to be so much more powerful than us women, but when we need them to stand up for us, they just flop. First there was the UNIP, the United Institution of Patriarchy. Then came the MMD, the Mighty Male Dictatorship. And now, even worse, the Phallic Force. All of them with men on top and women underneath, and then the men just flop. So I’m going to start another party!’

          ‘What will it be called?’

          ‘I shall take all the women from both the MMD and the PF, and therefore I shall call it the MF.’

          ‘Meaning?’

          ‘The Middle Finger. And that will also be our sign. One middle finger in the air!’

          ‘And what will be the party slogan?’

          ‘Stand up for us and we shall sit on you!’

          ‘So the women will be on top?’

          ‘Instead of Women’s Day we shall have Men’s Day. I shall take the salute as the men march past, all raising their middle fingers, to show that they are able to stand up for women.’

          ‘So it will be matriarchy?’

          As she raised one knee I glimpsed a flash of succulent thigh. ‘No,’ she said, ‘we shall show them the middle way.’

          ‘Men and women will lie together as equals?’

          ‘Exactly,’ she said. ‘Equality begins in the bedroom. And just as we unite as equals in the bedroom, we shall unite the nation. Bemba will marry Tonga and produce a new tribe of Bonkers; Apansi will marry Apamwamba and produce Apansimwamba; Muntu will marry Musungu and produce Muntusungu…’

          ‘Man will marry woman and produce humans,’ I suggested.

          ‘We must give it a try,’ she purred, as she held me closer. ‘We must set an example.’

          ‘But soon,’ I said, desperately trying to divert her attention, ‘the Speaker is likely to call you into his chambers to explain the behaviour of your naughty middle finger!’

          Her dressing gown slipped from her shoulders as she leant forward to run her naughty middle finger up my leg. ‘Providing me with a lovely opportunity,’ she purred, ‘to show him how to stand up for Zambia!’