GOVT’S INADEQUACIES!

LIFE has all but returned to normalcy of pre-novel coronavirus invasion within this the Kingdom of Eswatini as attested to by empirical evidence that is abroad to behold even if the country is officially and theoretically still in partial lockdown - of course the one exception being that government has inexplicably maintained the ban on alcohol beyond the two months it had initially announced when effecting this decision and by so doing pissed off industry players and, by progression, undermined the economy.

Disconcerting about the extension of the alcohol ban is not that it remains in force but the manner in which government has and is managing what should be the new normal occasioned by the novel coronavirus. At a time when government ought to have been leading from the front days before and after the ban on alcohol had lapsed, there was an unexplained interregnum after the fact that left the nation in general and industry players, in particular, in suspense. 

Even though this vacuum in leadership and indecision went on for almost a full week, five days to be precise, after the lapse of the ban, industry players remained civilized and reasonable, waited for government’s pronouncement on the subject matter instead of proceeding to reopen their businesses in the absence of a statute or regulation to the contrary.  

Interesting is that emaSwati had to learn from the foreign press why government was silent on the fate of the alcohol ban. Suddenly the ban on alcohol had, like everything else where the leadership is desirous of avoiding and evading the truth and accountability, a sensitive issue. It emerged that government was evaluating its options and consulting widely on the subject matter, later explained Prime Minister Ambrose Mandvulo Dlamini when he finally emerged from his cocoon of silence when he announced the extension of the ban by a further month. Paradoxically there is no evidence of government consulting extensively with all the stakeholders since while the leadership maintained a cloak of silence on the fate of the ban on alcohol, major stakeholders were up in arms over government’s indecisiveness. Nothing suggested that the industry players were being consulted except that government was ‘fidgeting while Rome was burning’.  As I see it, what is ironic in a week of contradictions by government is that all this happened or did not happen as government was consummating a new relationship with a South African public relations (PR) firm, Vuma Reputation Management – whose first port of call was a virtual press conference with South African media.  

Net outcomes

This would not be government’s first venture with an external PR firm in a bid to turn a stone into a diamond. Previous administrations have spent tens of millions of Emalangeni on United States PR firms to make Eswatini attractive and saleable. The net outcomes of those spare-no-expense ventures this country is well-known for is, you guessed it, zilch. 

The problem with government is its habit of throwing money – given the lack of accountability concomitant with undemocratic governance and processes - at every problem it comes across and then hope it will resolve itself without genuinely identifying and dealing with the causal factors. That is a fallacy! What we have just been witness to apropos government’s handling of the alcohol ban, indeed governance and leadership pre- and throughout the partial lockdown occasioned by the COVID-19 pandemic, is exactly what is tarnishing the image of Eswatini.

Consequently, the albatross compromising this country is its politics manifested by unaccountable centralised decision-making that makes everything unpredictable, uncertain and unworkable especially since in the majority of cases it is self-serving and not in the best interests of the people. Inevitably the first casualty of such a skewed political system is the truth, a fact that was currency during last week’s PR press conference with foreign media is the plethora of misrepresentations are anything to go by.

As I see it, another contradiction to the continued ban on alcohol was government’s decision to allow public transport to revert back to the normal 100 per cent occupancy. Yet no sooner had government pronounced on that than it went about shutting down churches that were deemed to have failed to follow COVID-19 protocols. With an open season on public transport manifested by absence of protocols such as sanitisers and social distancing either on public transport or at bus ranks, one has to wonder what sin the churches that were subsequently shut down had committed.

Throw in the fact that the majority of congregants use public transport en route to church, you have to wonder government’s comportment in its decision-making processes in the face of all these contradictions.  If anything, government’s management of the COVID-19 pandemic and the resultant partial lockdown has been lacking, especially when it comes to preparing the nation and enforcing the requisite protocols, choosing instead to blame its deficiencies on alcohol.

This much was also amplified in an African economic outlook 2020 report released in early July by the African Development Group, which was damning on the country’s preparedness to deal with the COVID-19 pandemic. The report, titled ‘Africa’s economic performance and outlook amid COVID-1’, rated Eswatini among the 33 countries ill-equipped and least prepared to deal 

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