PM: IS HE THE RIGHT CHOICE?

Good morning to all you my fellow Swati citizens and readers of this publication and this column!

Today this publication features the new PM, I am therefore addressing uMlangeni who was appointed yesterday.
Firstly, I want to say this to you Mlangeni:“Trust in the Lord with all your might. Let His Word be the light to your paths and a torch to your feet! Read Psalms 119:105-106.” Reading those verses will help you in your leadership to be willing to listen to all the voices, even those which may be critical of your actions.

King Sobhuza II once said: “Let us listen to even those who may appear drunk or crazy, because out of them may come the truthful things we do when we are sober.And out of what they should have said, we may find solutions to build our nation.”  This statement by the father of modern Eswatini lives on to this day.

Team of ministers

All will begin with the team you shall pick as ministers. What kind of men and women should you consider for this challenging task you are faced with? What have they done which you would want to use in order to overcome the enormous challenges?

 My plea to you is that: do not go for your friends or relatives because that shall spell your failure even before you begin to run. The history of this country is characterised by choices of friends and girlfriends into positions of leadership; people who come to these positions without any sign of competence for the  tasks they are assigned to handle.

WITHOUT THE ROAD
I live at KaLanga, under the Maziya chiefdom. Here, we have been without a proper road to Big Bend for the past six years.This happened despite that this the road not only services the business community of the Lubombo Region, but also connecting our country with KwaZulu - Natal and Mozambique, subsequently creating business opportunities for many emaSwati.

The delay in the upgrading of the road can be attributed to the narrative that there was one former Cabinet minister who decided to prioritise other roads over the Lukhula – Big Bend Road. Sadly, even the lady who was the Lubombo Regional Administrator did not see that the road needed immediate attention.

The next issue I want to speak about is the worse state of our economy. What are you going to do in order to reverse the current conditions in which the country finds itself? Are you going to be listening to the faceless cabals, push monies into their hands or are you are going to talk to the local business community, the academics and civil society to get their views, or will you isolate yourself because you believe you are the wise person who needs no advice or service from others?

Get it from me, and get it right: some of those sectors I am referring to have a lot to give to you if you want your five years in the office to be different from those who stayed in there and destroyed our country, claiming to be protecting our institution of monarch. Talk to us and we shall show you where others went wrong and why Vision 2022 appears as a farfetched dream to some of us?

In case you have never seen the original version of Vision 2022, do yourself a great favour, talk to either Mbuso‘Banks’Dlamini, or my dearest brother, Ephraim Hlophe. Either of these two shall give you a copy, which you must then reproduce, take your team of ministers for a week  to  Pigg’s Peak, and study it thoroughly; see where others went wrong, decide to come back to the nation and provide future direction, because we  have long lost the vision.

But should you think that I am just an 80-year old crazy mkhulu, then you are certain to fail even before you take the first step to lead government. I say this because I have participated in the compiling of three visions of this country in the 12 years I was Chief Executive Officer of the Federation of Swaziland Employers and Chamber of Commerce (FSE&CC).

In fact, I would strongly suggest that you have a look at all these three documents; the first one being vision 2020, created by business and trade unions in 1995, then vision 2022, created collectively by all sectors of our society, and then the  one created by employers in 2004: QuoiVadis Eswatini? The last one created by business after having being convinced that Vision 2022 had been ditched in favour of unknown strategies such as ESRA.

country’s failures

The trouble with this country dear prime minister is that we do not read. Right now, as you  take up this responsibility of leading government, for the next five years; I am  quite certain that you and your team of ministers would not have looked at what the global world says are the reasons for our country’s failures. That is totally unacceptable because they tell us what Pastor Ian Ndlovu of Bulawayo prophesied about our future as the country - unless we drastically change our political and social goings, we are destined to ruin! The growing anger among our youth must never be taken lightly as it is going to give rise to violent extremists.

We hate such truths and information, even if it comes from our own academicians.
I therefore place myself at your disposal, together with all those with whom we worked for peace and justice in this country. Call us whenever you want.Amen!

PEACE!

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