WHAT LEGACY ARE YOU LEAVING BEHIND?

THE first cut is the deepest, so they say. This means the first act is important. I agree because the person cutting is still fresh and full of energy. But they go on to say the last kick of a dying horse is dangerous.

This means that the last act is also equally important. I also agree because a person who has not performed well can redeem him or herself with the last act and all that we remember is the last act of that person.

The Constitution of Swaziland; Section 90 (5) provides that the Elections and Boundaries Commission (EBC) shall be in office for a period of 12 years maximum and there is no option for renewal of that term. That means some members of the EBC will definitely be vacating office in the next few years and this is their last elections in office.

This is inclusive of the incumbent chairperson. The question that I have is how do they (EBC) want us to remember their term of office? Do they want us to remember them for the wrongs that happened in that office or they want to redeem themselves and we remember their last kick?

I should not be misunderstood to mean that there were no positives that were performed by this office but there were more wrongs that need to be corrected mostly in relation to their main task, which are elections. This is the last chance to correct those wrongs.
This is the EBC that spent millions of Emalangeni of taxpayers’ money on software that failed on elections day and jeopardised the credibility of those elections.

This amount of money is too huge for it to go down the drain. It went down the drain because we were told that new software and equipment have to be sourced again at a huge cost. This has raised some serious questions. We cannot afford to buy expensive things which we will never use.

There must have been guarantees from the supplier that in case this fails he must correct it or pay back the money, unless the suspicion that someone was getting some kickbacks from the purchase are true. The EBC would definitely not want us to remember them as the people who misused government funds on something useless.

Useless in the sense that on the very same day that the equipment was supposed to perform it failed dismally. I am sure we are to hear that some actions were taken to correct this. Such actions should not include wasting more money by buying another system, as suggested by the EBC. The supplier of the system that failed should be taken to task and some money be recovered.

I am sure the EBC will not want us to remember it as the EBC that interpreted ‘as soon as practicable’ to mean a period of close to four years or more. This is in relation to Section 92 of the Constitution that enjoins the EBC to release a report on the elections as soon as practicable after the elections.

The EBC took more or less four years to release this report. What is worrying is that other people, including observers released their reports in less than six months after the elections and one wonders what took the EBC so long to release theirs, especially because their report should carry recommendations that must be acted upon before the next elections. Maybe in the coming elections they will redeem themselves and be remembered for the good they did.

Having mentioned that the term of office for the EBC staff is coming to an end, I hope the Judicial Service Commission is gearing itself to properly advice the King on who to appoint. We expect them to advice the King on people who qualify as per the provisions of the Constitution. These are people who should pass the threshold as provided in the Constitution. This is important because we will be blaming the EBC yet the people who were appointed don’t possess the necessary qualifications.

If you put gravel in you cannot then expect it to be processed and come out as gold. So what we put in to office will do a disservice to that office if they do not pass the necessary threshold for that office. My other worry is the composition of the Judicial Service Commission itself.

We have had the composition challenged because of people who are no longer supposed to be in office. If they are not supposed to be there, then how good will the advice that they will give to King be? Will we be happy with the advice given that they are legally not (at least according to the challenges in our courts) supposed to be there? I hope sense will prevail and have people know that we will remember them for what they did.       
 

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