In defence of shelving the Pension Fund report

My Lord, I could not fail to notice how certain busybodies in this country have worked themselves into an unholy bother over a report that has been gracefully shelved regarding the K128 billion purchase of a hotel by the Nyasaland Public Service Pension Fund. My Lord, whether that report ever sees the light of day on the Parliamentary Order Paper should be of zero concern to these civil society organisations. After all, their noisy members are neither public servants nor pensioners!

Why choke on tea meant for another man’s breakfast? Furthermore, My Lord, the Nyasaland Legislative Assembly is an august and busy institution. It cannot be cajoled by armchair critics into abandoning the weightier matters currently before it such as the solemn inquiry into the tragic plane crash that took our prominent citizens.

To drag a mundane report about a hotel into such dignified proceedings would be an insult to the dead! Besides, My Lord, the hotel in question is still standing; it has not flown away or crashed into a forest. What, then, is the hurry?

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I hear malicious whispers insinuating that the report has developed cold feet because it implicates senior officials in the ruling People’s Demagogic Party (PDP). My Lord, this is slander of the highest and most unpatriotic order! Even the Nyasaland Anti-Corruption Alliance has joined the chorus, foaming at the mouth and frothing that failing to table the report where a modest K90 billion was allegedly already paid represents a “grave omission in Parliament’s oversight role and a disservice to future pensioners.” Therefore, My Lord, we humbly ask these busybodies to exercise patriotic patience.

Let them wait until our forex reserves improve before demanding that the report be tabled! The public’s absolute trust in the Legislative Assembly’s role in tackling organised corruption has never wavered. We must reject the absurd claim that “the public has waited too long for answers.” Those demanding answers are not ‘the public’ but opposition sympathisers, enemies of progress, and agents of doom! After all, the millions spent funding the parliamentary inquiry came straight from our taxes, and if we, the taxpayers, are not complaining about the money being shelved, why should these uninvited busybodies care?

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