Pay gap or power play? The uncomfortable truth

Let’s not mince words…

When the news broke that Eswatini’s politicians, specifically our Members of Parliament, had pocketed staggering salary adjustments – reportedly a cool E32 000 extra per MP – it wasn’t just a news story. It was a slap in the face. 

For the teachers, nurses, clerks and police officers who have been grinding away for years on frozen salaries, listening to government plead poverty, this was more than an economic decision.

It was a declaration. A crystal-clear message, broadcast from the halls of power to the crumbling classrooms and under-stocked clinics, about who truly matters in this country, and who is merely seen as a line item on a strained budget.

Public sector unions reacted with a fury that wasn’t just swift; it was righteous, earned through years of empty promises and the slow-burn agony of watching the cost of living skyrocket while their pay checks stagnated. 

While the nation’s civil servants – the very engine of the State – were reportedly offered a paltry, almost comical, one per cent cost of living adjustment, the MPs were celebrating. 

Let’s be brutally honest: A one per cent increase in today’s economy isn’t a raise, it’s an insult. It’s a calculated gesture of disrespect, so minuscule it barely registers against the relentless climb of inflation. The unions called it ‘daylight robbery,’ and they’re right, but the theft isn’t just of money. It’s of dignity, of fairness and of the already fraying notion that we are all in this together.

This whole sordid affair forces one vital, screaming question into the open: What do these glaring pay disparities really tell us about who Eswatini’s Government works for?

The Uncomfortable Truth: One Country,

Two Economies:

The hefty MP raises didn’t descend from a vacuum.

They landed in the middle of a full-blown crisis for everyone else:

Teachers are fleeing the profession, broken by the combination of pathetic pay and classrooms so overcrowded that education becomes a form of crowd control.

Nurses are the walking exhausted, stretched to their absolute limit, making life-and-death decisions without enough staff, without enough supplies and without enough support.

Police officers patrol our communities, facing dangers and difficulties that most of us can’t imagine, only to return home to the same financial anxieties as everyone else.

Junior civil servants are performing mental arithmetic on their way to work, calculating if their salary can cover transport, rent and food for their families, often finding that the numbers simply don’t add up.

For these people: The ones who actually keep this country from falling apart, the MPs’ raises were not a surprise.

They were a confirmation. They validated the quiet, simmering suspicion that there are two Eswatinis: One for the connected, the political class and another for the rest of us, the governed.

Government’s narrative has been a broken record of ‘fiscal tightening,’ ‘budget constraints,’ and ‘patience.’ We’ve been told, with a straight face, that raises would come ‘when the budget allows.’ And then, miraculously, the budget did allow. It allowed for a massive, jaw-dropping adjustment for the very legislators who oversee that budget. So, who exactly are they trying to fool here?

This isn’t just a contradiction; it’s a damning double standard.

It suggests that fiscal responsibility is a virtue expected only from the lowest paid, while the political elite operate under a different, more generous set of rules. The union’s argument isn’t just a demand for more money; it’s a profound and legitimate critique of a system that has created a hierarchy of human value, and in doing so, has marginalised the people who deliver the services the nation depends on to function.

Let’s call things what they are:

A one per cent offer is not an adjustment; it’s a token, a deliberate placeholder meant to silence, not to solve.

 A E32 000 jump for MPs is not smart benchmarking; it’s an unjustifiable prioritisation of political comfort over the critical, crumbling needs of our public services.

This isn’t just a pay gap; it’s a deliberate act that devastates morale and directly harms the quality of education your child receives and the healthcare your parent depends on.

It signals a culture of political entitlement that has completely swallowed any notion of servant leadership.

The Justification vs The Reality Check:

Okay, fine. Let’s play devil’s advocate. Let’s consider the flimsy justifications government is likely trotting out behind closed doors.

1. “We need to benchmark salaries to attract quality leadership.”

They’ll argue that to prevent corruption and attract the ‘best and brightest,’ MPs need competitive pay compared to regional counterparts.

The brutal reality: This argument is selectively applied with breathtaking hypocrisy. If competitiveness is so crucial for MPs, why is it utterly ignored for the teachers, nurses and engineers whose skills are the actual bedrock of national development? You don’t get to cry ‘brain drain’ when your best professionals leave for Botswana or South Africa or Ireland while you’ve spent years telling them there’s no money to keep them. You can’t have a ‘quality’ nation without quality public services.

2. “It was already in the budget.”

They might claim that parliamentary salary reviews are part of a pre-planned, sacrosanct cycle.

The obvious question: Why was such meticulous foresight and budgetary discipline never, ever extended to the ordinary civil servant whose wages have been frozen solid for years? The message is clear: our own financial planning is non-negotiable; yours is an afterthought.

3. “They have higher responsibility.”

Sure, leadership carries weight, but that weight must be balanced with accountability and, crucially, public trust – both of which are in critically short supply right now.

The uncomfortable truth: Let’s be honest. A significant portion of the citizenry wouldn’t be disappointed if the current cohort of legislators were in their last term.

Confidence in their leadership is hanging by a thread, and a massive self-awarded pay raise is a surefire way to snap it.

4. “Independence of powers – it prevents corruption.”

The old chestnut: Pay them well so they aren’t tempted to seek money elsewhere.

The fatal flaw: This logic implodes when the pay adjustment is so grotesquely disproportionate that it becomes the source of social tension and deep-seated resentment. It’s not preventing corruption; it’s institutionalising a different form of it – a legalised plunder that sows the seeds of instability.

Strip away all the polished excuses and one raw, undeniable truth remains: If government can find the money to dramatically uplift the lifestyles of a few hundred MPs, it has unequivocally proven that it can afford to treat its thousands of workers with basic dignity and fairness. The choice not to do so is just that – a choice.

The Power Imbalance and the Inevitable Fallout:

In Eswatini, this pay disparity isn’t just about money; it’s a thermometer measuring a feverish power imbalance.

Public servants must wait, hat in hand. They must petition, negotiate and plead, often for scraps. MPs, in contrast, operate in a closed loop where they directly or indirectly influence the decisions about their own welfare. It’s the ultimate conflict of interest.

This forces us to ask the uncomfortable, foundational questions:

Should those who make the laws be the first in line to benefit from the national coffers?

What does it say about a leadership class that enriches itself before it has even begun to address the desperate cries of the workforce that serves the people?

The consequences of this imbalance aren’t theoretical; they are already unfolding:

1. The collapse of morale: A one per cent token doesn’t just buy less bread; it tells a worker: “You are worth less.” When people feel unseen and disrespected, their commitment doesn’t just fade – it curdles into resentment. They will do the bare minimum, because that is what they are being paid for.
2. The suffering of services: You cannot have quality education without motivated teachers. You cannot have effective healthcare with demoralised nurses. You cannot have public safety with a disgruntled police force. The direct outcome of this pay gap is longer lines, more errors, increased absenteeism and a frustrated public – all of which government will then blame on the workers.
3. The accelerating brain drain: Eswatini is in a fierce regional competition for talent. We are actively telling our best and brightest: “Your skills are not valued here.” When a nurse sees a politician get a raise that represents years of her own salary, the decision to pack her bags for greener pastures becomes a simple matter of survival.
4. The total erosion of trust: This is the most dangerous consequence. When citizens see their leaders act in a blatantly self-serving manner, they stop believing in the system altogether. They see government not as a partner in progress, but as an adversary, a parasite. This politicises every dispute and destabilises the very foundation of governance.

A Path to Restoration, If There’s Will:

Fixing this isn’t rocket science. It requires a fundamental shift in priority and a heavy dose of integrity.

To even begin restoring balance and trust, government must:

 Implement a transparent, structured wage review: No more arbitrary, self-serving bumps for the powerful. A single, transparent formula, based on verifiable inflation data and real economic performance, must be applied to all public servants, from the junior clerk to the MP.

Prioritise the essential, not the powerful: The first call on the public purse should be the teachers, nurses and police officers. Their roles are not ‘costs’; they are investments in national stability and human capital. They should be at the front of the line, not the bottom of the list.

Lead by example, not by decree: When times are tough, the belt-tightening must start at the top. A leader who awards themselves a massive raise while preaching sacrifice to the masses is not a leader; they are a hypocrite. Freeze top-level increments during periods of economic strain. Show us you feel our pain.

Move from token consultation to genuine partnership: Worker representatives must be in the room from the beginning of wage planning, not treated as a nuisance to be managed after the key decisions have already been made.

Eswatini is at a crossroads. The gap between the governors and the governed is widening into a chasm – not just in pay, but in empathy, in shared reality and in basic human respect.

Public servants are exhausted, and not just from the low wages, they are exhausted from the constant, demoralising demand to sacrifice for a nation whose leaders seem unwilling to share in that sacrifice.

This is not about envy. It is about justice.

The MPs’ (and other high ranking politicians) salary increase has become a potent, ugly symbol of governance priorities laid bare for all to see. At a time of widespread economic hardship, this decision is more than just tone-deaf; it is a fundamental betrayal. Eswatini does not need leaders who live in a separate, gilded economy. It needs leadership that embodies the fairness, dignity and shared sacrifice it so readily preaches.The public doesn’t need more promises.

It needs action: Equitable pay, transparent decisions and a government that proves, through its deeds, that it prioritises its workers as much as it prioritises itself.

Until that day comes, this pay gap will remain a stark, unforgiving mirror, reflecting a deeply uncomfortable and dangerous truth about the state of power in Eswatini.