HAS GOVT QUIETLY ABANDONED FIRST WORLD VISION?

Sir,

Many experts and ordinary people were amazed about the First World proclamation and most were skeptical that we wouldn’t be anywhere near a First world country, with some even joking that unless the definition of a First World country changes, we were decades away from such a status, but nevertheless, our leaders kept on harping about this vision albeit with no tangible goals/milestone put in place. I liked this vision because at least it gave us direction and a sense of purpose as a country.

Vision

The silence in respect of this vision from the current government is deafening. I’m not sure what the reason/s for this government going mute in respect of this vision. Has this government realised that it is a nightmare and not a vision? There is a fine line between a vision and a nightmare; or has government realised that the vision was not achievable or has it totally abandoned this vision and resigned itself to having our country languishing in the doldrums of third world misery?

Visions are by their own nature essential to the survival of any institution; as the Holy book says: “Where there is no vision, the people perish.” It was indeed encouraging that the Head of State came up with the vision and to some degree it was inspiring that as a country, we were willing to imagine and plan for our future. From the outset, our politicians were rhetorically referring to the vision at every given opportunity without any tangible plan of how do we get the desired status, they seemed to think that skyscrappers and other vanity projects would make us achieve First World status.

Failed

This government should not be dejected by the fact that their predecessors dismally failed in doing anything in respect of moving the nation towards the vision, they only paid lip service to the vision and I’m tempted to think that beyond mentioning the rhetoric, they either had no clue what they were talking about or they never believed in this imagined journey towards this vision. Leaders who don’t share in a vision cannot be expected to effectively execute tasks and activities that they don’t have faith in.

Create

This government should come up with a plan and create an enabling environment in terms of policy that will inter alia; attract foreign direct investment; drive massive investment in infrastructure, drive massive investment in quality education; drive massive investment in quality healthcare services. It cannot be expected to carry out such monumental tasks on its own, it needs the private sector and the nation behind it.

If we give up on this vision, we will essentially be failing to imagine and plan for our future, and history tells us that nearly everything starts with an imagined future and you put up a concrete plan to achieve that imagined future. If we fail to have a vision, future generations will decry that they had us as their forefathers as we would have failed them.

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