WHAT IS LISWATI LIFE WORTH?

I can graphically picture the hellfire that would have been rained on anyone classified as a proponent of multiparty democracy being exposed celebrating and ventilating their satisfaction on the death of one of the kingdom’s political elites in stark contrast to Prince Majaha’s so-called private celebration, alongside the giggling and recently departed Minister of Labour and Social Security Makhosi Vilakati, the death of fiery political activist and president of the Swaziland Democratic Party (SWADEPA), Jan Sithole.

I am also certain that the buzzwords in the middle of this condemnation and persecution would have been its ‘unSwazi’, disrespectful and inhuman. None of these terms applied to Prince Majaha. And George Elliot became relevant in this context when he wrote: “Blessed is the man who having nothing to say abstains from giving us worthy evidence of the fact.” 

As I see it, there was no need to apologise on behalf of Prince Majaha. He had already been given that opportunity when he was interviewed by Times SUNDAY about the video in which he and the late Vilakati were joking about Sithole’s death, but he spurned it. No, he was not apologetic, but responded by saying ‘to be honest, I don’t like anyone who’s giving my dad a hard time’. And Sithole’s sin for which he deserved to be ridiculed in death, according to the prince, was ‘misleading the beloved Eswatini people to so called democracy. I will never forgive that guy’.

Strife

The subject matter for today’s column was the strife in the frontline in the fight against COVID-19, but it became unavoidable not to tackle Prince Majaha’s behaviour not just in the infamous video, but in the resultant press interview. The latest instalment is that involving paramedics going on strike to force government to positively respond to their demands. The five demands are;

Payment of overtime allowance owed to workers (paramedics).

Provision of PPE (personal protective equipment).

That one of the senior officials stops insulting and victimising workers.

The ministry of Health gives employment opportunities to paramedics who have been serving internships for more than a year.

Unlawful and illegal transfer of paramedics should be stopped.

A cursory glance at the five demands suggests that they could easily have been resolved without the necessity of the paramedics proceeding on strike. And the strike is not the first involving frontline workers in the middle of a deadly pandemic that has already claimed over 600 lives. Nurses have been through this route on numerous occasions including taking their employer, government, to court to force it to do the right thing; provide them with PPE.

As I see it, appraising the five demands by the paramedics, one cannot help, but conclude that these should never have arisen in the first instance if there was efficient management at all levels of the line department, the Ministry of Health. These demands should have been addressed long before they became demands and causal to strike action. Consequently, government has to look into its internal administration and processes to resolve such issues. However, the tendency by senior officials is to focus on personalities and thereby allow egos to replace logic and reasoning. The demands by paramedics should never have 

arisen because they should have been anticipated and dealt with before they became obstacles. And there are administrative and management tools that were created for this purpose of pre-empting problems and the potential areas they could arise from. 

Strike

Consequently, volatile situations culminating in strike action could easily have been avoided. One had hoped that the advent of the COVID-19 pandemic would lead to paradigm shifts on many fronts, especially since the lives of emaSwati are at stake here, but apparently that is not the case. The life of liSwati to government is still not worth anything typical to pre-COVID-19 pandemic era when the national healthcare system was allowed to decay and collapse because of neglect and under budgeting.

As I see it, in the wake of the initial strike by nurses, government should have moved mountains to ensure that frontline workers were more than adequately provided for given the risks involved, something that should have happened on the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. If there ever was a case of no expenses spared, this should have been the moment when government channelled a bulk of its resources to fighting the pandemic because it involved the lives of emaSwati. But then again, what is the worth of the life of liSwati to government?

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