A PLEA TO MINISTER OF FINANCE

Despite the nauseating talks on fiscal consolidation and reigning in on government expenditure, it is obviously clear that government is still bleeding a lot of money, which unfortunately is on pointless and frivolous expenditures.

The prime minister together with the minister of Finance need to take a personal stance and start taking drastic measures to ensure effective management of the public purse, that is, Eswatini’s G-wallet. In fact, it is now high time that the Finance minister starts being personally responsible for accounting for every cent that is spent out of the G-wallet to cut all the unnecessary spending that is tanking the economy every day.

Fate

The fate of the sinking Eswatini economy rests so much on how much money government is able to swindle out of emaSwati’s pockets. The least we can ask as subjects of the Mandvulo government is for the minister in charge of the country’s finances to take personal responsibility and corrective action to put a stop once and for all to all the wastage that has become of taxpayers money in Eswatini. Can the minister tell us who is responsible for authorising and approving payment for the shameful E78 million spent on the five star toilets to be installed in the monstrosity being constructed down the valley? What is the bigger picture that we as ordinary citizens are clearly missing from this kind of mindless spending? Someone has to be held accountable because the country can no longer afford to be spending money willy-nilly when there are so many national development commitments that government is dismally failing to meet.

Economy

To turn the economy around is clearly now a matter of improving government finances and so the minister of Finance should personally be responsible for signing and accounting for all the cheques paid in the name of the Government of Eswatini. Enough is enough; we are fed up on all ends! The plea to the minister may seem drastic and unfair but it is absolutely necessary because nothing ever gets done within the Eswatini Government system unless a crisis falls upon us. To avoid one crisis after the other, the country should first close all the holes in the G-wallet that are continuing to run government into bankruptcy. 

Speaking of unmet national development commitments, one would think that these would be motivation enough for our government to want to do better. For instance, government is in no position to offer quality Free Primary Education, it is just a commitment on paper just so Eswatini can appear to be busy and committed to United Nations Conventions on Development.
How can we expect the country to give us free education when it cannot even keep us alive in the dumps of what has become of our public hospitals? In the current fiscal space, parents should pray for miracles to save their children from the failing education system in Eswatini. The public sector associations should also pray even harder because Eswatini’s Government can no longer afford to pay for anything but the one monstrosity that is sucking everything out of the economy down to the Ezulwini Valley.

Yes, we will have to put all our hopes on miracles to develop the Kingdom of Eswatini if the minister of Finance does not take personal charge of running the G-wallet. One of the big miracles we are yet to see is how government will untangle itself from the issue of cost of living adjustment for its civil servants. Eswatini should have never allowed the public sector to grow to these unsustainable levels in the first place.

Bills

Now government has two bills that are biting the country in the rear-end: one is the emerging white elephant down the valley and the other is the child support our mother hen government has to keep paying to maintain the civil servants. Perhaps government is in so much distress the toilets were just a spending spree to relieve itself of the stress from the constant migraines of balancing the budget with the plethora of unmet national commitments. The minister of Finance should simply take over the G-wallet, the country cannot continue on the same path. Show us that Eswatini is open for business by showing the rest of government that you mean real business. Government should stop wasting money.

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