Times Of Swaziland: TRIM ALL THE DEADWEIGHT

TRIM ALL THE DEADWEIGHT
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The Editor on 21/04/2021 07:48:00


Sir,
We need a strong private sector to develop and grow the economy. If government
keeps expanding at a faster pace than the private sector, the more deadweight
government will absorb and carry at the expense of taxpayers. That deadweight
will keep demanding more cost of living adjustments while the economy continues
to shrink. A lopsided public sector is all the reason why government keeps
increasing and sneaking in new types of taxes. Government jobs simply mean
meeting about meetings, processing forms, approving or declining business and
general public requests, being important, among many other useless routines that
can be automated.
Trim
The question is; who will be brave enough to trim all the deadweight, automate
government processes and services, and leave a lean public sector that will
perhaps cost government less to run? We need to cut useless spending and ensure
that government officers and top officials are able to account for every second,
minute, and hour they spend on government’s payroll. We are simply tired of
people getting paid to do nothing so that at the end of the year they can demand
more pay and benefits. The whip must be cracked on performance targets within
all ministries including within the inner circle of Cabinet itself. In the
private sector when a person does not do the job, they get fired and this should
be the case in the public sector. Enough with the transfers that keep rotating
useless officers from one department to another.
The country needs to cut the bloated ministries, parastatals and commissions.
There is a lot of duplication of work within government yet it still takes ages
to get anything done. Another factor that must be considered is for government
to cut tax and put money in people’s hands. We are exhausted by all the tax we
have to pay. It costs money even to get out of the house now. The economy cannot
get anywhere if people do not have money in their pockets, if the little bit of
money they make government finds ways to take it so it can pay for its out of
control expenditures. Emaswati have suffered and the taxman needs to cut us some
slack.
Leadership
The country is in ruins because of poor leadership and the people the system
kept over years without allowing new and fresh minds to shake the way government
does its business. We need to try new ways of growing the economy and take all
the economic and social policies that have collected dust in the different
ministries with a grain of salt.