Home | Feature | THE REASON WE RAISE ISSUES

THE REASON WE RAISE ISSUES

24/01/2019 00:49:00 By vusi Kunene

Font size:

WHEN two bulls decide to engage in a fight, the grass suffers so they say. The most painful thing is that the grass has no say in the decisions taken by the two bulls but it will bear the brunt for the decisions of the two.

The grass also does not even have an alternative in the whole set-up and has to endure the pain that comes with the decision of others. This is the same scenario for many citizens of this country. Mostly suffer for decisions that they have no power over and they cannot even do anything to stop those decisions from being taken.

This article is triggered by the uncertainty of schools opening this year. Most children have been waiting for a long time for schools to open. Parents have gone to great lengths to prepare their children for school. Some have even gone as far as getting into debts to pay school fees for their children. But if what we get from the newspapers is to be believed, we are not sure what will happen with our children this year.

This has nothing to do with the parents or the children but has to do with government and its employees. I am not sure if the leaders of our government are aware that it is the children and the parents who will suffer the more in what is threatened. I would have loved to blame the teachers but I am forced not to because they have waited for over two years to get an increment and government is still not negotiating in good faith.

I say in good faith because of the acts of government. They say there is no money but there is money to give to police officers to go and invigilate in schools just to make sure that teachers are frustrated. There is also money to give to the same institution through promotions. For the sake of the children and the parents, that is why we raise such issues.

Nowadays some people survive because of having medical attention frequently and with no such attention there could be fatal consequences. I therefore shudder to think of what will happen when nurses and other civil servants in the health sector decide to try to force government to listen to their pleas by downing their tools. We are already faced with the challenge of lack of drugs and working tools in hospitals.

This also has very dire consequences. A number of people are dying because they are not getting the full medical care they deserve in our health institutions and it seems our government sees nothing wrong with it. For the first time this week I experienced it first-hand that this is indeed true. Government has all along been denying that there is serious lack of medication in hospitals but I confirmed it.

Two hospitals failed to provide calamine lotion to a child in need of one and it had to be sourced from a pharmacy. So it is the needy who who suffer and die because they cannot afford to buy drugs from the pharmacy. The silence from government is also deafening when some of its parastatals take actions that are not going to assist the people of this country to enjoy a better life. An example I would use is the ban on importation of mealie meal from our neighbours.

This is a major source of food for many people in this country and as a country we are still failing to produce enough. It, therefore, presents difficulties when some government parastatals decide to take certain actions that are drastic to the lives of emaSwati without carrying out studies to make sure that the people will not suffer. In all the wrongs by the parastatals, the government that is supposed to be monitoring them is just silent like there is nothing wrong. The result of this is the huge suffering by the people who are to be serviced by the parastatals.

The pain of noticing the helpless people suffering because of the acts by certain people in position of leadership is what leads me to raise some of the issues. I do not think it will be fair not to alert government on these even though some say government knows about these but is complacent.

Raising these issues also brings attention to the one raising them but I think Mark Henry was on point when he said he will not be silent because there is a super being that will help him as long as he pursues justice for the people. I think there must be those who alert the government on some of the wrongs they are doing. So that is why we raise these issues. We are saying to our government it must correct the wrongs that are happening.