SD TITTERING ON THE BRINK

THE Kingdom of Eswatini is emerging, into the real world, from a long weekend during which the nation enmeshed itself in what could easily have been the mother of all parties in celebration of 50 years of independence from the British and His Majesty King Mswati III’s 50th birthday with no hint whatsoever if government has not woken up to the reality that the country is in serious crisis.  

One would like to believe that the commemoration of the kingdom’s 50th independence anniversary was brought forward from September 6 to coincide with the Ingwenyama’s birthday for the sensible reason that the nation shall be going to the Hastings later in the year to elect a new government.

Yes, it is important to put things in proper perspective given the extent of the convolution of our political and social environments nowadays.
Oh yes, when a government taxes everything that moves, that breathes and that is on the throes of death, that country cannot be said to be normal and prospering – these are tell-tale signs of a country in crisis.

Exacerbating matters, of course, is the same government commercialising its services to the people, services that ordinarily should be readily available and affordable, and by so doing abdicating its responsibility to the people - that is assuming it ever had a relationship with the populace other than that of master and tax slave.

But of course our government and its coterie of grovellers, bootlickers and sycophants would disagree with this outlook and grim reality because it is always in denial for the simple reason that some want to protect their pride of place on the gravy train with no destination except to ruin this country.

No, I would not wonder into the subject of the country’s rebranding or renaming because it is on record that my thinking and outlook on issues was decolonised sometime back hence over the years I took pride in referring to this country as the Kingdom of eSwatini, which henceforth is the official name of the kingdom decreed the iNgwenyama last week.

Of certainty is that this transition will not come cheap, an expense that naturally will be the burden of the silent taxpayer on whose behalf such and many other national decisions are routinely decreed.
Poignantly, while the nation psyches itself for the trajectory into the last half of the century since independence it would be wise to reflect on the many misses of the past 50 years.

It is, for example, inconceivable that after 50 years of so-called independence the nation has not outgrown its minority status into full maturity in order to take its destiny in its own hands. Coupled to that is that issue of land tenure system. Perhaps the Kingdom of Eswatini is the only country in which the people have no right to ownership of even a square metre of land on Swazi Nation Land in their own country.

Why, even ownership of title deed land is not secured. This is one boil that should have been lanced immediately after independence because surely independence without the right to land ownership is meaningless.  

Talking about lancing the boil, we should come to terms that the country has not developed according to its potential. As previously aptly articulated on this column, this country should be the oyster of the continent and an envy of all had it been properly governed from independence to date.

The latter part towards the completion of 50 years of independence has been revealing in terms of being instructive on how not to run a country. Certain things that have happened in the governance of the country bordered on the criminal. Take, for example, the exploitation and management of the country’s mineral resources, it has been disastrous and akin to the operations of a criminal syndicate. Why, even the fiscus is poorly managed and a lot of resources invested in ill-informed and uneconomical projects.

Those charged with the political stewardship of the kingdom are using their positions to enrich themselves as well as their kith and kin with the rest of the population left to wallow in grinding poverty and disease.

Given the physical size of the country and its relatively small and, until recently, homogenous population there is no reason why the kingdom should not be a leader in many spheres because we ought to be the most educated and multi-skilled nation per capita had government prioritised human capital investment to put us on the cutting edge of knowledge and technological advances.  In fact this should be a country of abundance and not one of poverty.

As we prepare to launch onto a trajectory of hope for all, we need to holistically review how this country has been doing business in the last 50 years, especially the latter half of that period. But of course that would initially require a paradigm shift in the nation’s body politic as envisaged by the National Development Strategy.

Singing praises of a largely dysfunctional political system like Tinkhundla will not take us anywhere. In fact continuing on that path might require serious and sober assessment of life after Lilangeni is forced to de-link from the South African Rand.
Taxing people to death is not the solution but the prudent management of the fiscus plus investing in economically viable and sustainable projects is the way to go.

The alternative is too ghastly to contemplate. Poverty is the parent of revolution and crime, so articulated Aristotle.

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