Africa-Press – Zambia. This week I looked at my old picture albums and came across two interesting photographs. Both photographs were from the early eighties. One was me with Captains Charles Musenge, Brian Mabula, and late Captain Waluka Mukuni at some party. These three friends of mine were some of the earliest commercial pilots Zambia Airways had.
The other photograph was of me during my lecturing stint at the National Institute of Public Administration (NIPA). I was with a group of my students whom I was lecturing on the civil service code and it’s regulations.
The picture with the pilots interested me because I always used to marvel at the skill and prowess of my three friends. I even remember being on a flight one day and realizing that my Freind Captain Charles Musenge was flying me when he came on the on flight telecom to make a cabin announcement and identified himself as the pilot. The other passengers looked at me oddly when I excitedly was telling all and sundry that the pilot flying the plane was my freind. I felt safe.
The picture with my then students, whom I had lectured on the Civil Service Code and the public service Rules, interested me because quite a number of them had gone on to become senior civil servants and some even rose to the lofty position of permanent secretary.
They managed to rise to these high heights and perform duties of ‘Controlling Officers’ because the Public Service Rules (PSR) they had been lectured on provide standard operating procedures and policy statement that regulate work and the condition of service in the public sector.
PSR is designed as work guide and manuals for bureaucratic culture among public service employees. As a result of my knowledge about what real pilots do, I do not appreciate Former President Barack Obama’s jokes about pilots.
Last year Obama joked about Herschel Walker, the Republican Party nominee for the Senate seat runoff in Georgia, using a “thought experiment” highlighting the Republican candidate’s lack of ability or experience for the political role.
At a campaign rally for Walker’s Democratic rival, Obama acknowledged that Walker was “a heck of a football player” and “amazing, one of the best running backs of all time.”
Obama however argued that Walker’s prowess as a football player didn’t make Walker the best person to represent Georgia. Obama imagined people seeing Walker in the airport or hospital and allowing him to fly the airplane or do surgery because of his success on the football field.
In Zambia we all know that Chama “Pilato” Fumba recently got awarded the President’s Insignia for Bravery on account of tremendous heck of prowess in combining governance matters in his music using vernacular language helping to shape the political discourse of the nation and country.
As his music was widely accepted among the people affected by poor governance especially the youth, his fight for justice good governance and better living conditions for the poor through his music has gotten him special recognition as now a Permanent Secretary. This position requires one to be the ‘Controlling Officer’ and to follow civil service regulations for fear of having a charge from the Anti Corruption Commission of willful failure to follow laid down procurement procedures and guidelines contrary to section 34 of the Anti-Corruption Act.
When I think of Pilato’s appointment, Obama’s words keep on playing back in the recess of my mind, “Herschel Walker was a heck of a football player… does that make him the best person to represent you?… let’s say you’re at the airport and you see Walker and you say, Hey, there’s Herschel, He is winner man. Let’s have him fly the plane!”
Do not mistake Pilato as being a misspelling that needs the “a” to be dropped and the “o” moved to where the”a” was. Make no mistake, Permanent Secretary Pilato is what he is.
Seeing that Pilato is a heck of a musician, if not the best Zambian musician of all time, I would like to do a “little thought experiment” though and ask, “Can Pilato fly a plane?”.
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