Times Of Swaziland: WE APPRECIATE KING’S DECISION

WE APPRECIATE KING’S DECISION
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By Jan Sithole on 28/10/2018 05:02:00


As SWADEPA, we appreciate the consultative approach that the King has introduced
in the process of appointing the prime minister.
It is indeed unprecedented and much appreciated. This is one of the traits that
need to be filtered through to other areas of decision making processes in the
country, and in dialogue processes, this is called consensus.
As SWADEPA, we commend every positive step towards acquisition of democratic
principle and still reserve our right to question what is not. Every journey
starts with a single step; however, the political, economic and social
situations surrounding us dictate that we need to move at a much faster pace.
democratic principles
The concept of good governance is bringing democratic principles which are
consultation and dialogue with stakeholders and the principle of the separation
of powers. It is a principle of good governance to enable citizen/stakeholder
participation in policy formulation in the formative stage before establishing a
policy.
There are inseparable similarities in some critical principles of good
governance and democracy, particularly the following: citizen/ stakeholder
participation, separation of powers, respect for the rule of law, equality
before the law, accountability and transparency.  Both good governance and
democracy frown upon all forms of discrimination and corruption.
national dialogue
As SWADEPA we believe that the challenges that the country is currently facing
need an all-inclusive broad based political national dialogue and we believe
that such dialogue should be institutionalised because challenges cannot always
be fully exhausted in just one impromptu event, but need to be managed in a
sustainable way.
The current economic outlook, statistics and several service delivery challenges
such as;
l Increasing debt.
l Ever growing unemployment.
l Ever increasing poverty in the face of many sponsored poverty alleviation
policies and guidelines.
l Increasing deficit.
l Increasing taxation.
l Ever increasing basic commodity prices.
l Scarcity of drugs in public health centres.
l No cost of living adjustment for the public servants.
l Budget seldom addresses peoples priorities.
l Lack of clear land policy.
l Lack of clear investment policy.
l Service delivery and regarvelling of roads completely ignored.
l Delayed payment of service providers great and small.
l Reduced tertiary allowances.
l Increased reported Corruption during elections process and delayed justice.
l Lack of separation of powers.
l Lack of pluralism.
l Increasing corruption and docility of the ACC.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank narrative confirm the
above status about the country, but unashamedly states that we are a middle
income country and our poverty is somewhat self-inflicted. Shame on the lack of
fiscal discipline and expenditure patterns that are inconsiderate of the revenue
status
The above list, long as it may look, is not exhaustive by any stretch of the
imagination hence the need for an urgent national all-inclusive political
dialogue is paramount.
Smart Partnership
The Smart Partnership proponents and specialists of the early 1990’s will
remember that all dialogues of that epoch were all-inclusive and were neither
selective nor discriminatory, and that was the genesis of smart partnership that
initiated the concept of vision 2020, which later turned out to be vision 2022,
after the deliberate amputation of the chapter on politics by government.
This was an act which was both a dishonourable of disservice to the people and
groups of civil society who unreservedly applied their minds in putting together
a roadmap for the country that was supposed to guide us as a nation politically,
economically, socially, culturally and otherwise.
deliberately discriminated
The later smart partnership forums were characterized by selectivity - invited
civil society organisations were deliberately discriminated against other civic
groups such as workers and political parties.
This trend continued even after the adoption of the Constitution of the country
which promotes and protects the freedom of association, assembly and expression.
That is why from where we stand, there is need for an all-inclusive national
dialogue because for an effective turnaround from threatening economic abyss, we
need every sector to be represented by both individuals and groups such as
political parties.
While we appreciate the exercise of allowing appointed and elected politicians
to speak at Sibaya for all of us to hear, which we must commend as a good
initiative, all it does is to expose the individual excellence, brilliance and
intelligence, which most presenters have done pretty well.
But other than knowing and hearing them, it does not mean they will do what they
were talking about, because in this system of government, they remain individual
pieces that do not form one synergised puzzle because their individual ideas are
not backed by a budget and the budgeting is not based on any manifesto but
depends on the shopping list that the minister of finance will accumulate and
will not be addressing the comments we heard them speak at Sibaya.
That is where the party system is different, because whatever the party tells
the people, that will be coming from their manifesto.
The party with a manifesto that appeals to the majority voters gets to run a
government and will design the budget according to what they promised the
electorate in their manifestos.
As a result, their accountability will be based on what they promised the
electorate, which is not the case on the individual brilliance system.
system of government
The current system of government was meant to be an experiment and when it fails
to deliver we are expected to try something different. Some wise words say;
“you cannot do the same thing and expect different results.”
It is now an opportune time to consider other governance options as proposed in
our supreme law that we adopted as a nation at Sibaya in July 2018, such as
section 58 (4) under ‘political objectives’, which reads as follows in
Siswati version;
“Tonkhe tinhlangano tepolitiki kanyenetinhlangano tesive letifunakungenela
tembangave kuyawufuneka titfobele timiso letisekela intsandvo yebantfu
kuletonaletotindzawo laphotikhona.”