GOVT NOT CANDID WITH SADC SUMMIT BUDGET

I read with much trepidation in the local newspapers that hosting the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Heads of State and Government Summit will set the taxpayer back by an odd E16 million. And yes, we are playing host to the SADC Summit slated for next month and for which government has reportedly budgeted E16 million. My initial reaction on reading about the budgeted amount was one of disbelief. No, not disbelief that the amount budgeted was too much. But rather that it was too little by our government’s standards.

Yes, our government is known for its gargantuan appetite for spending on things most likely to falsely project this country as very successful and wealthy, perhaps to keep the 2022 First World dream alive. That makes the leadership feel good with itself while the majority of the populace are dug deeper into a vicious cycle of poverty. As I see it, reflecting on past celebrations and specifically the 40/40 double celebrations and the money put into use thereto, I am bound to concludes that the E16 million is probably only for the latest state-of-the-art limousines that will be procured for use by the attendant heads of State and government. In which case the entire budget for the summit might be double or even triple that which has been made public. That was also the case with the 40/40 double celebrations, expenditure ended up triple or even quadruple the original budget.

Our government has never been candid with the people when it comes to the management of the fiscus owing to the skewed architecture of the Tinkhundla political system that is largely patronised by a minority within the nucleus of political power. Hence the cyclical annual national budget is but a ruse because in the larger scale of things most of the taxpayers’ Emalangeni are appropriated extra-budgetary outside the purview of the Legislature, the only institution empowered by the Constitution to deal with matters of appropriating funds to be employed, on behalf of the people, by the Executive for the function of government and the State.

Over the years I have wondered how much of the taxpayers’ Emalangeni have been appropriated under a cloak of secrecy. Indeed it is shocking that anyone can still trust this government with anything, let alone with the treasury.  My initial thought about the E16 million budget for the SADC Summit, of course outside thinking that Malawi had used a small fraction of that amount to host a similar summit, was where it could have been most usefully employed. Given the state of the economy, ever increasing unemployment, specifically within the youth, deepening poverty, inadequate scholarship for tertiary students, routine shortages of drugs in our health institutions in the face of diseases, paralysing effects of the drought that has decimated hundreds of livestock from the kraals of rural homesteads, the list is endless; people need not scratch their heads to find a purpose for this amount of money. 

Not so long ago the European Union (EU), alarmed by government’s lackadaisical response to the dire drought situation, warned against a tendency of outsourcing interventions instead of taking responsibility. EU Ambassador to Swaziland Nicola Bellomo warned that donors cannot take over government’s responsibilities whose priorities were elsewhere away from the people in need.

The tendency is to argue in favour of the benefits that accrue from hosting such huge events as the SADC Summit. Yes, it is true that such summits come with benefits, the biggest beneficiaries being the hospitality industry and tourism, but these should not be looked at in isolation of other competing interests. This is more so given that many of these benefits are short-term and not sustainable in the long haul.

The political prestige, which seemingly is always the focal point of government, of hosting such summits is insignificant in the face of the multi-pronged challenges, especially in the area of humanitarian interventions, facing the kingdom. And given the state of the kingdom’s body politic coupled to resistance to reform it, chairmanship of SADC is of little value other than being symbolic.  In addition, the significance of bodies like SADC is, within the African context, over-exaggerated. Most often than not they provide talk-shop platforms for leaders to dine and wine each other while policies that have to do with real issues affecting the ordinary people take lifetimes to implement.
And while on the subject of the SADC summit, will Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe survive the winter of discontent in his homeland, to once more bore us with his condemnation of the West, the United States and the United Kingdom to be precise, for all his troubles? 




 

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