FIRST WORLD VISION FRUSTRATED BY SELF-SERVING INDIVIDUALS

Sir,

In my simplistic view, I had thought that the First World dream was a directive to government to come up with a concrete policy framework that would not only explain what this was all about, but also how this would be attained and as well as ensuring that the entire nation was brought aboard. In that way we would all have a common understanding of the sort of First World we want to achieve as well as how we can collectively go about to attain this objective. After all the vision can only be achieved through the full participation of the nation.

Transforming

But while everyone was parroting the virtues of the kingdom transforming into a First World nation, no one paused to consider first, the practicality of this happening and second, the modalities of how this could be achieved in the event it was feasible. This well-meaning vision was frustrated by individuals who are self-serving. I can recall vividly some years ago when during a graduation ceremony at the University of Eswatini, the King charged government to compile data of unemployed graduates. Of course, this created expectations across the nation that this data would be useful in either government identifying areas of development that would absorb unemployed graduates or piloting a social responsibility programme through insurance or other means in order to support unemployed graduates.

Instruction

It is anybody’s guess if the King’s instruction was carried out as at a similar event the following year, the unemployed were told that they were on their own and should look outside this country for job opportunities. Perhaps had someone within the echelons of power considered the enormity of the First World dream and its possible impact on the people, they would have stumbled on the realities of the multi-faceted challenges facing the majority of the people. For if truth be told, there is no magical quantum leap over the many daunting challenges facing the people – especially the disenfranchised majority at the foot of the economic ladder.

Many people still lack the means to make a decent living, owing to widespread unemployment such that they cannot guarantee themselves a single decent meal on any given day. Poverty remains foremost in the minds of the majority of our people. Access to health facilities is still a nightmare to many and even where health facilities are accessible there is no guarantee that they are adequately equipped with requisite professionals, let alone drugs and equipment.

Unfortunately, the obtaining political system still subscribes to the long discredited top-down approach in which the leadership barks orders to the people without expecting any resistance but only conformity. The fact cannot be overlooked that given the huge social and economic disparities in which a significantly small section of the population is already enjoying a First World lifestyle while the majority of the people’s lives is a daily grind and unpredictable.

The long and short of it is; was the vision realistic considering that owing to the social and economic imbalances the majority of our compatriots are still struggling to emerge from the trials and tribulations of a Fourth World while an insignificant small elite is already reaping the fruits of a First World country?  

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