Ethics? Kick me if I am dreaming!

Last Friday I woke up and called for the papers. That is the way of us hacks. You must be on top of the news if you want to be an effective journo

As usual guys were machine-gunning and blowing up each other in different parts of world. Mzee Bob Mugabe was winning the elections before the people of Zimbabwe had even started to vote.

Same news in the papers. But I got stunned when I read the headline of my beloved daily blah. It had a banner headline reading ‘Ethics to dominate NEC meet’ at a CCM party meet.

Something was definitely very wrong somewhere. I started reading the banner headline again. Again it read about ethics.

Impossible! I grabbed my dictionary. Just near the word ethics was the word ‘Ethanol’ which is a kind of alcohol. Then I went down to the word ‘ethics’ it said a moral principal and ethics is a study of moral principals. Maadili..

Then I started laughing. Moral principals after what is happening in Tanzania! In journalism we must be very careful with the use or misuse of words. Ethics? Where?

You simply cannot talk about the ethics of Richmond briefcase company. You simply can’t even imagine the ‘ethics’ of the BOT, EPA bank robbery. There are no ethics there, just plain greed.

You can’t call any ethics in the ruinous IPTL, Songas and other deals designed to suffocate Tanesco to death. Is that ‘ethical’? Is it ethical to force Tanesco to hike power tariffs to hapless Tanzanians.

Now I hear that the BOT twin-towers have been built for more than $400 million. Prices treble from the real value so that some guys can steal money and offload the cost to the Tanzanian tax-payer. I guess that is ethical!

For in Bongo reality is stranger than fiction. You pay 152 million a day to somebody you don’t even know. Next we will be hearing that Tanesco has been paying the same kind of money to some ghosts.