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NOTHING LEARNED FROM MAPUTO CORRIDOR LOSS

17/12/2018 08:33:00 Vusi Sibisi

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Almost two decades ago the kingdom was sidelined from the Maputo Corridor Spatial Economic Development project, which was a tripartite initiative also including South Africa and Mozambique, ostensibly because of government’s traditional procrastination.

I recall, in the latter part of the 1990s decade, I had been invited, on a professional basis as an Editor-In-Chief of a newspaper, to the official launch of the Driekoppies Dam in Mpumalanga Province, South Africa. This was part of a bilateral water retention and conservation project between the kingdom and South Africa under the Komati Basin Water Authority (KOBWA), from which Eswatini was bequeathed the Maguga Dam. Then Mpumalanga Province Premier, Ndaweni Mahlangu, had, while giving me background to KOBWA, expressed his regret and sadness that Eswatini had been left out of the Maputo Spatial Economic Development Corridor.

That being news to yours truly, since the Eswatini Government had not made any public pronunciations about pulling out of the project, I wanted to know the reasons behind this sudden turn of events. Mahlangu made it known that it was a decision between the governments of South Africa and Mozambique that Eswatini be excluded for failing to come to the party. Apparently, Eswatini was still procrastinating over security issues and, fearing that further delays could escalate construction costs and concomitant logistics since the project entailed the construction of a new highway from Lothair in Mpumalanga through Eswatini to Maputo, the two countries decided to pursue the project on their own through the longer and much more expensive Komatipoort (SA) route to Maputo.

Needless to say, the project carried infinite economic opportunities, especially for emaSwati, along the route. Looked at in totality the kingdom would have been the major beneficiary of this development since the longest road stretch of the Maputo Corridor would have been the internal Ngwenya - Lomahasha, meaning costs and financing for the construction of the highway would have been minimal since it would have been shared equally between the three countries. When I caused to be published the story on the Maputo Corridor; government’s reaction was as if I was guilty of high treason and it vehemently denied the fact. And this signalled my initial fallout with then Prime Minister, Sibusiso Dlamini. Significantly, the collapse of the Maputo Corridor initiative on the domestic front came in the aftermath of the launch of the 25-year National Development Strategy (NDS) that fingered the obtaining Tinkhundla political system to be problematic and not catalytic to the kingdom’s economic quantum trajectory into the 21st century and thus called for requisite political reforms.

As it turned out the kingdom’s subsequent exclusion from the Maputo Corridor initiative authenticated the findings of the authors of the NDS. As I see it, it is ironic, indeed a paradox, that indecision apropos the Maputo Corridor was premised on security concerns when the political hegemony has been praised by government as being responsible for fostering peace, security and stability. Yet this country, again paradoxically, is heavily and unsustainably invested in the military to the neglect and exclusion of national imperatives such as education, health of the nation, food production and social security, has not exponentially benefitted from this peace and stability dividend.

While it is easier and convenient to blame the government of the day for not delivering, in actual fact it is the political system that ought to be criticized for being driven by and in service for the benefit of a few to the exclusion of the people. That is why government is not accountable to the people and, in turn, the people cannot change government when it fails them.
The relevancy of the Maputo Corridor narrative is germane to what is unfolding as government remains paralysed on whether or not to take the quantum leap and decriminalise cannabis to unlock the country’s economic conundrum. Just like we lost out on the Maputo Corridor, we are about to lose out on probably the biggest economic trajectory in our lifetime. Driving what could radically transform the economic development of the sub-region, indeed Africa at large, since the end of colonialism, will be the cannabis economy.

By now it is pedestrian to talk about the multi-purpose use of the herb; pharmaceuticals, textile and apparel, construction, cosmetics, etc. The palliative intervention right now is to get policy-makers to break out of the box and abolish the single-minded association of cannabis with drug addicts, while also counting the relative cost of alcohol and cigarette smoking on human capital and, by progression, the economy. This country could have been the gateway into Africa, hosting and a hub for key sectors such as health and pharmaceuticals, information communication technology, finance, tourism/travel, etc, but all thanks to a dysfunctional political system all this remains unattainable and hypothetical.

As I see it, had government been in power at the behest and in service of the people and failed to deliver it would simply have been voted out of office. But that cannot happen under the Tinkhundla political system but only under a people-driven multiparty democratic dispensation hence mediocrity is the measure of achievement in the prevailing environment.