FEEDING SELFISH OLD GEEZERS?

The reason people are scrambling to go to Parliament is not because they want national economic change, but more so personal economic change.

We are a country riddled by stomach politics – greed, backstabbing and inequity. As people climb up the power and leadership ladders in Eswatini, they quickly become selfish monsters detached from their economic and social responsibilities.

They prey on the vulnerable and hungry to maintain their positions of power, while in the long-run our economy fizzles into a speck of dust.
Probably two-thirds (more than half) of the aspiring Members of Parliament (MPs) are clueless about how the economy functions and the role of government in balancing the supply and demand factors of things.

Primarily, we need MPs who can make sense of the country’s laws and economic policies so that they can become the check and balance system that puts government in order.

I mean, if we, as a people, were really serious about economic change, how is it that some of these old geezers who have become classic ornaments of our Parliament make it to the ballot table?

You can just see it in their faces that they are tired, incapable of fresh new ideas, and are simply using Parliament as a retirement benefit scheme to empower their homes and gluttony of their stomachs. Why should one person enjoy more than one term in Parliament?

It comes as no surprise that our MPs are highly competent in passing circulars that deal with remuneration, benefits and their exit packages, which, to a large extent, is to the detriment of real business progress and improvements in people’s livelihoods.

So then why do we even bother to vote? Can we really expect anything of substance from our MPs? These old geezers are a problem that has festered in the economy and we need to get rid of them and allow the younger generation to take leadership with fresh ideas and economic action that does not feed short-term stomach politics. Old geezers have access to power and money, they know how to make the economy work for them and their immediate families.

Instead of voting for people who will force government to spend resources and money for the greater benefit of emaSwati, as a whole, people now vote for MPs who can supply them with groceries, pay their school fees, contribute to their funerals and sometimes build someone a house in their communities. What a joke.

No wonder, once elected, some of the MPs run away from their constituents to find solace in suburbs, where they can hide away from constant knocks on their doors from throngs of people demanding imali yemphuphu, emafushana, emabhontjisi, and school fees sebantfwana. This is what has become of the role of an MP in Eswatini! When we say let us all go out to vote so that ‘sitowakha live’, do we mean voting so that we can secure our lifelines to feed our never ending hunger, desperation and inadequacies?

Ok, let us think for a moment about what we can be grateful for in terms of the outputs of our previous MPs. The old government is responsible for the fiscal crisis which is now turning into an economic crisis in Eswatini.

Recycling the very same old geezers with our votes just keeps recycling and perpetuating the same kinds of problems in Eswatini and then we wonder why 63 per cent of the population still lives under abject poverty in this country. If we become selfish with our votes, by voting based on how much money or free stuff we can milk out of MPs, then we shouldn’t cry about the ever increasing cost of living.

The price to pay for cementing old geezers in Parliament, who are incapable of thinking beyond their stomachs, will be more tax increases, increases in prices of your utilities (water, electricity), and we can forget about scholarships to send top students to top class universities around the world. We can forget about having proper hospitals that can deal with serious health issues like cancer, diabetes, etc. We can forget about putting an intact government that can institute robust policies to stimulate business growth and vitality in the economy.

While people continue to vote for their ornaments so that they can milk the hell out of them, these ornaments will continue to milk government for their personal interests, and government will come back to dig deeper into our pockets when it has made a mess of the public purse. Stop feeding old geezers with your precious votes!

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