Nobody lied, just linguistic inexactitude
On June 18 2015, I was reading what would be good news. The story was that Lilongwe City Council was moving forward with revitalisation of the council rest houses. Someone from the council was being quoted as saying the thinking in the council was that the rest house will be leased out or something like that to a strategic partner. That partner would run the facilities on behalf of the council.
The firm or person running the facility will pump in some cash, perhaps also rehabilitate the rest house. The city council will have gone into an arrangement with the firm or person on how to share the profits (hopefully). The story went on to quote council official saying this new thinking will revitalise tourism in the city. Guess what? By the end of the month, “we should have advertised and gotten the successful bidder.” My goodness!
Let me say that for the purposes of this article, I have no intention whatsoever to bash the public officer—the employee of the city council. Public officers are already exhausted from being blamed for many things. But I lay the blame squarely on the media—the journalists—in being complicit in misleading the public, which this fourth arm of government swears to protect. I have doubts the city council rest house is such a strategic investment for revitalising tourism for Lilongwe. People will come from near and far, from the east and the west, from the north to the south and lodge at the council rest house. Then the following day, they would go to the nature sanctuary, see some animals and visit Kamuzu’s Mausoleum. Then they would go back to the rest house and spend the night. The following day, the tourists will go to Kamuzu Dam at Dzalanyama, sail on Lilongwe river before going to Lumbadzi to watch the coming of ET, KQ and SA flights. They will then travel to Senga Bay for a swim before coming back to the rest house for the night. I am creating these scenarios because I couldn’t just figure out how the council rest house will contribute to the enhancement of tourism for the city. May be I should say there are backpack tourists that I should have thought about in the first place. Pole sana.
Now I want to comment on the optimism as how soon the partner will be identified. Remember I was reading the newspaper article of June 18 2015. The city council officer was being quoted as saying they will advertise and by the end of “this month” the preferred bidder would have been identified. I blame the journalist for publishing these sort of lies. Where on earth can an advert be floated for these sort of bids and within two weeks the preferred bidder identified? It would take a minimum of a month, and to be realistic, more than a month for any bids to come in. Then there should be the opening of bids and selection of the preferred bidder. All this takes time and two weeks was just inaccurate (I can’t say a lie you know). n
