Private sector-led growth invoiced to death

Let us begin with gratitude. Genuine, respectful gratitude. We must commend government for its unwavering belief in the private sector. In fact, no one believes in business more than the administration, which is why it super­vises it, licences it, regulates it, audits it, invoices it and occasionally reminds it who is really in charge.

This is not control; this is love. Suffocating, in­voice-backed love.Every speech reassures us that Eswatini’s future lies in private-sector–led growth. Ministers say it slowly, solemnly, as if reciting scrip­ture. Jobs will come, they promise. Innovation will flourish. Entrepreneurs will rise.

Then, quietly, methodically, government does everything possible to make sure none of that hap­pens. Consider value-added tax (VAT) on sport drive. The most creative tax Eswatini has ever embraced. VAT on water for businesses. Water! The substance without which nothing functions. Businesses pay VAT before they even produce a single good or ser­vice. Add electricity to the equation. You do not just pay for the units you consume. You pay a monthly fee for the privilege of being connected, plus VAT on the actual electricity. You pay to connect. You pay to consume.

You pay to exist. Then government asks why businesses are struggling. However, the regulatory imagination does not stop there. Somewhere between inspiration and absurdity, someone decided that keeping employee records, basic human resource information, should require payment of E10 000. That is if your staff complement exceeds 50. Not because the data is sold. Not because it is shared. Not because it is abused. Simply because it exists. Salaries, ID numbers, next of kin – the administrative minimum of employment is now a taxable offence. Somewhere in an office, a regulator is nodding seriously, stamping a form, convinced he has just protected the nation by charging a business for a filing cabinet. Add the costs of licences, renewals, compliance certificates, inspections, environmental fees, health requirements and specialised permits. Add the cost of owning a water bowser.

Add the cost of time lost navigating offices that do not speak to one another. Each department arrives alone, invoice in hand, certain it is the only one squeezing you. No one asks what the total looks like.

No one asks whether survival is still possible

The rubber stamp does not calculate consequenc­es; it only confirms authority. Also, this is where the economics collapses so completely it becomes embarrassing. If you raise the cost of doing business, fewer businesses survive. If fewer businesses sur­vive, fewer people are employed. If fewer people are employed, tax revenue shrinks and poverty expands. This is not radical theory. This is subtraction. It is the sort of logic a schoolchild understands instinctively. In all this, just for the ‘likes’, add taxation. Local businesses pay corporate tax faithfully.

They pay because they are here, visible, traceable and patriotic enough to stay.Meanwhile, foreign direct investors are welcomed with tax holidays, incentives and exemptions so generous they resem­ble apologies. The logic seems to be this: Locals already live here, so they can endure pain; foreigners might leave, so they must be protected. Loving your country, it turns out, is an expensive habit. This is not an accident of policy. It is a philosophy. Punish familiarity, reward distance.

Yet politicians appear genuinely confused when retrenchments rise. They hold meetings. They com­mission studies. They express concern. They never once trace the problem back to themselves.

The cruelty of this system is that it pretends to protect workers while actively destroying their jobs. The minister will not lose sleep.

The regulator will not miss a meal.

The consultant will still invoice. It is the shop assistant who is told there is no overtime this month.

Then there is no contract

Then there is no job. The working class absorbs the shock quietly while policy congratulates itself loudly. Perhaps, this is intentional. Perhaps government does not actually want a vibrant private sector, just a few large, manageable players and a population grateful for survival. Perhaps, small and medium enterprises are inconvenient: Too independent, too noisy, too difficult to control. If that is the strategy, then congratulations. The policy is working beauti­fully.What makes this worse is the cheerfulness with which it is all done. Politicians praise entrepreneurs in the morning and regulate them into extinction by afternoon. They speak of empowerment while extracting fees from effort itself.

They do not see the contradiction because they do not feel the consequences. A government that truly understood economics would be obsessed with lowering barriers, not inventing them.

It would measure success by businesses opened, not forms completed. It would understand that you cannot regulate prosperity into existence, you either enable it, or you kill it. Instead, we have created an economy where trying is expensive, surviving is punished and failure is blamed on the victim. We celebrate foreign confidence while exhausting local courage. We tax effort, regulate survival and then act shocked when our own people stop investing, stop hiring and stop believing. The punchline is this: A government that treats businesses as enemies to be controlled should not be surprised when jobs disap­pear. You cannot build an economy by punishing those who show up.