ESWATINI IN DIRE NEED OF GROWTH

Sir,

The country is in dire need of growth of new sectors within the private sector that can produce new goods and services and offer employment opportunities to the multitudes of unemployed emaSwati. With growth of new industries, entrepreneurs too also get a chance to hone their business concepts to take advantage of the business opportunities that come with new developments. At the same time, all this new growth means more money trickling into the government purse. Meanwhile, in the education sector, government needs to make sure that we have a world class education system that encourages learners to think for themselves and innovate, instead of becoming robots that are only good for regurgitating information.

Increase

This will enable the pupils and students who go through the system to, graduate with solid ideas on what new business ventures they can add to the economy and increase the private sector. The Ministry of Education and Training should note that the private sector is not really hiring anymore. We need the education system to churn out job creators rather than job seekers and for the longest time now, the ministry has become a vessel for absorbing failed career choices among its graduates. Therefore, it should allocate more of its budget on school infrastructure and training materials rather than a vehicle to bloat up the civil service wage bill. For the agriculture sector, the priority is very simple. The country needs to be self-sufficient when it comes to food. Eswatini should be able to put food on our tables without huge reliance on food imports.

If government can make the agriculture sector lucrative for our own farmers, this sector can begin to grow. When government deliberates on the ease of doing business, it should make it a point to remember that this concept also applies to the agricultural sector. Then there is manufacturing and agro-processing. Well, without fixing market failure within the agricultural sector, there is very limited agro-processing that will take place in Eswatini. Agriculture provides the raw materials for agro-processing, which then feeds into the manufacturing of finished food products that emaSwati buy in the giant supermarkets all over the country.

Develop

With the abundance of arable land across the country, agriculture and its allied industries can offer a lot of employment opportunities, develop new industries and feed the nation with less dependence on South Africa. Government should open its eyes to the true problems facing the different sectors in the country to make the real changes the nation desperately needs. The first priority under each of these sectors should be to increase the ease of doing business so that the private sector can invest and create the much needed jobs.

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