Bongoland governmental and political heavyweights have converged in the supposedly mother of all regions in central Bongoland for the annual marathon Budget meeting.

In the coming few weeks, the heavyweights will be throwing around words and numbers on the direction this scribe and fellow wretched of the earth are going in order to survive in the coming 364 days.

With them there also will be representatives of bongomites. Some of them, during the Budget, will throw a tantrum here and a storm in a tea cup there to make their presence in the Budget House known to respective voters.

As usual, these representatives will not make much difference to what the Budget Heavies have already decided for us.

In between, an extra number of cows and goats will be ‘murdered’ at a famous place called Mnadani to cater for the extra chewing needs of the heavies.

This being the age of technology, the said marathon meeting is now beamed live into our sitting rooms and work places where we will be able to witness our politicians giving performances worth the swahiliwood equivalent of the Hollywood Oscars.

Of course, at the end of the tantrums the people’s representatives will do their expected ‘kuunga mkono hoja’ thing and that will be that.

That is why rarely this scribe will lose his time listening or watching our mighties and our representatives going through the sometimes yawn-provoking routine of asking questions and extra questions and getting answers and extra answers which in the end do not add much in helping bongomites getting or living the so called ‘maisha bora kwa kila mbongo.’

This scribe is now not so keen in listening to what is coming from our central political city because long ago he came to realise that what is discussed in the said city and his experiencing here in uswazi are two very different things.

He has come to realise that when the political powerhouses in Dodoma discuss and announce the reduction of price of petrol, cement, flour and other essential commodities, they are doing that for Martians living in Mars and not for bongomites.

This is because in uswazi nobody is ever able to buy the commodities by the directive prices announced politically in Dodoma.

In uswazi, our dukawallahs who seems to never ever listen or read something called ‘budget speech’ will never sell kerosene at the legal price announced in Dodoma.

Yes, and if Mama Chesi dares to complain about the hiking the Mangi will simply advise her to go to Dodoma to buy the commodity at the announced price.

This advice will come after the said Mangi has ‘sang’ to Mama Chesi the top-ten ‘Hali Ngumu’ song as if shopkeepers are the only bongomite experiencing the hard times we are all facing now.

This scribe will not be paying much attention to what is going on in our central political city because he has also come to realise that most of those impressive billions of shillings being budgeted for development will eventually end up in few individual pockets for developing themselves and their families.

Indeed, this scribe is seeing the budget speeches in Dodoma as mere shuffling of words and impressive looking numbers but do not truly reflect the economic hardship he is going to face for the coming 364 days.

Did last year’s Budget budget we will be buying a kilo of rice at between Sh2400 and Sh2800 this year?

Does anybody know what this scribe had to do to plug up the difference between what was budgeted and what was the true market price of the product in those once in a blue moon days when his gluttony glands ‘cried’ for ‘wali’?

Nobody! That is why this scribe is leaving budgeting for those individuals for whom it will eventually trickle down to their pockets instead of to our desk-less primary schools.

Budget for him means waiting until Sh10,000 note loses its bearings and finds itself in his pockets and only then, he and Mama Chesi, can budget what to buy according to the market price of the commodity and not according to what some financial gurus said in Dodoma.

chesimpilipili@gmail.com