DON’T LET THE KING DOWN!

The recent incident that happened at Bulembu, where His Majesty the King was expecting to find a tarred road but to his surprise found there was none, was so embarrassing. 

This was without doubt not the first of its kind, as there are a lot of incidents when His Majesty visited and pledged something with the hope that government would implement it but government never did.
I am sure if His Majesty the King would visit the many sites that he has pronounced on, he would get so many surprises. I have often said how I wish His Majesty the King would sometimes call his entourage and tour the country without informing government officials.

This will give him an opportunity to see what the roads look like. The roads are only maintained when government knows that Their Majesties will be visiting and thereafter they are a nightmare!
If there could be an audit of all the projects that His Majesty the King has ordered, a lot of cases similar to Bulembu would be revealed. I recall that His Majesty the King officially opened the Baphalali Swaziland Red Cross Clinic at Sigombeni in 1997 and, during his visit, he ordered that the road to the clinic should be tarred. 17 years later that road has still not been tarred.

I remember during my time in office I approached the Minister of Public Works and Transport, the Honourable Ntuthuko Dlamini, whose response was that after His Majesty has pronounced himself the government cannot implement it immediately but has to include it in the national budget.
The million dollar question is how many years should it take before they are able to include those projects in the national budget.
This is not the only project, as there is also a low bridge at Mbelebeleni that crosses over to Florence and His Majesty the King ordered that a new bridge should be constructed.

Risk

To date, that bridge has not been constructed. During rainy seasons, the water runs over the bridge. The lives of many Swazis are thus placed at risk.
This Bulembu incident actually reminded me of one of the training workshops that I attended on NGO Management while I was still the Executive Director for the Swaziland Action Group Against Abuse (SWAGAA).
During the training, they emphasised the fact that it was very important that, as Chief Executive Officers, we should sometimes get out of our air-conditioned offices and monitor what is happening on the ground. Ministers need to do this, too.

One of the facilitators shared a story of how one Honourable Minister from a neighbouring country was badly embarrassed in front of donors. To cut a long story short, the country had received funding from one particular donor to construct a bridge.
The donor indicated to the minister that they were going to be visiting the country and an arrangement must be made to tour the projects that had been funded, one of which was the bridge.

The minister called one of his officials to his office to find out how the project was going. The official confidently told the minister that the bridge was long completed.
The minister then waited for the big day and the local media was invited to cover the tour. The minister did not bother to do a site inspection of the bridge first.

The donor arrived and they started touring the projects but, when they got to what was supposed to be the bridge, there was no bridge to be seen; just some culverts and crushed stone.
The minister was heard screaming to the officials ‘where is the bridge?’

It was such an embarrassing moment for the minister. Everyone who was there wondered if this was a genuine mistake or it was done deliberately. 
Can government officials spare our Majesty this type of embarrassment and follow up on all the projects that have been endorsed by His Majesty the King, so that umlomo longacali manga is not embarassed?

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