SWAZI NATION FACING AN UNCERTAIN FUTURE

PERIODIC handouts from the State and a burgeoning body of unregulated charitable organisations – mostly established and run by the well-heeled minority in the pound seats in the political hierarchy and the economy – can never be the panacea in addressing and resolving the ever worsening vicious cycle of poverty which, at approximately 64 per cent, is afflicting the majority of the approximately 1.2 million population.

A cursory appreciation of government’s annual budgets in the last decade or so shows that poverty - excepting seasonal run-of-the-mill cynical lip-service from the leadership - is the least of its priorities. Instead, government outsources its responsibilities of ensuring a humane lifestyle for the people and the concomitant humanitarian interventions in times of crises, to the global community, including the United Nations agencies, United States, European Union and the Republic of China on Taiwan, among others.

A classical example of a government reneging on its responsibilities to the people is the free primary education programme that it has outsourced from the EU since inception.
Having previously warned government not to outsource its responsibilities to the Swazi nation from elsewhere, the EU has since given notice that it is ending its support for this programme next year and government must start looking elsewhere for funding.

There are a multitude of other examples one can enumerate on of a government least concerned with the plight and basic needs of the people for which – if and when provided and accomplished by international community, foreign governments and donors - it routinely and unashamedly claim credit. And a pliable and ignorant public programmed not to think, robustly interrogate and critically analyse issues will not know any better before singing praises of a so-called political system they hardly comprehend.  

As I see it, to the politically undead the question that arises is; if the people are not the centre-piece of government, as suggested by empirical evidence, then what are government’s priorities. Answers to this question can be summarised as follows; top priority is to spend on hedonistic and uneconomical but wasteful projects, bumengemenge, that would project a superficial picture of the Kingdom of eSwatini as wealthy for the trajectory to the nauseatingly often spoken about First World status in 2022; progressively build a war machine by increasing the numeral strength of the security forces and acquiring as much military hardware as possible to keep the people silent and; create the conditions wherein the rule of law is not respected to enable nefarious activities of the elites to flourish.

The casualties in this scheme of things are initially the people – faced with a vicious cycle of poverty, ravaged by disease, joblessness and voiceless – as is the Constitution and indeed the rule of law.
The conduct and behaviour of government in general and Cabinet, in particular, are influenced and shaped by the skewed Tinkhundla political system that is personality-cult driven. In this context, government is not responsible to and accountable to the people. Informed by this grim reality, it may well have been the rationale why authors of the National Development Strategy (NDS) in 1997 sought for political reforms if this country were to be strategically positioned for global competitiveness in order to spur and accelerate holistic economic development towards achieving the stated Vision 2022.

For a portable small country with an equally small and manageable population, the challenges weighing down on the shoulders of this the Kingdom of eSwatini could well equate to the net sum of all the world’s problems. Worse still is knowing that these challenges are manifestly man-made and self-inflicted, owing to a dysfunctional top-down prescribed political system that places premium on individuals in leadership other than the people as a collective, hence the skewed scenario wherein national imperatives are submerged by the desires of individuals controlling the levers of political power.  

Nowadays it is easy for those in authority, of course their bootlickers and sycophants in tow, to use the drought as an excurse for the socio-economic challenges facing the nation, yet the rot started long before this natural phenomenon hit the country. Government has persistently failed to create conducive conditions and an environment to attract foreign direct investments to spur economic growth.  

As I see it, the twin root-causes of this nation’s socio-economic woes are reckless management of the fiscus and poor decision-making, owing to a fatally flawed political system. Causal to this is the unfettered political power which is allowed by a skewed and manifestly corrupt political system - under which the people are at the bottom of the ladder - that also does not place any premium on the rule of law. In real terms this means it is the obtaining political system that is a parent to socio-economic challenges that, in turn, are responsible for societal social ills such as crime.

In many instances government has been warned from within and by foreign governments, international multilateral and bilateral agencies and other partners to forge a new political path in order to pursue realistic, practical and people-driven programmes and policies in order to secure a bright future for the nation. But as usual, government has been obstinate. 
Days after Prime Minister Sibusiso Barnabas Dlamini had warned of a fiscal crunch in October last year, Freedom House released a damning report about this country.  
And for the Swazi nation the future remains uncertain!   

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