EVEN WHEN RIGHT, MPS CAN NEVER WIN!

MINDFUL of my recent two successive columns focusing on the deficiencies of Parliament occasioned by the obtaining political status quo, I have been scratching my head struggling to remember, without success, a time when lawmakers have prevailed on anything over incumbent Prime Minister Sibusiso Barnabas Dlamini - eventually concluding that if any, these were few and far apart.

Put differently, I cannot recall a time when the PM has not come out triumphant each time he has been at odds with the lawmakers. But clearly Members of Parliament (MPs) in the House of Assembly are oblivious to this fact if their last week’s decisions are anything to go by.
MPs last week resolved to shelve E5.5 million budgeted for the construction of the PM’s lavish retirement home in Mbabane. Ironically, the home might be built on the controversial piece of land the PM acquired, along with some of his cabinet colleagues, at less than market value, an act seen as naked abuse of power.

The PM later took government to court over the transfer of the controversial piece of land, arguing in his court papers that he acquired it through an executive decision by cabinet. He later explained that he had taken government to court not as the PM but as a private citizen, to get the land transferred to his name.

Additionally, the legislators last week also voted to park in the consolidated fund the E20 million budgeted for Christian education – whatever that is. Obviously in a combative mood, the MPs further ordered government to reverse the banning of other religions in schools, arguing that this was embarrassing the country internationally.

In recent columns I have enumerated on the battles that have been fought between the Legislature and the PM from which the latter always emerged triumphant. Besides the abortive no confidence vote, perhaps the PM’s greatest victory was the capture of Parliament itself, which constitutionally is under an autonomous Parliamentary Service Board (PSB). By so doing he compromised the principle of the separation of powers between the three arms of government; Executive, Legislature and the Judiciary. 

As I see it, in most instances, if not all, the lawmakers were on the right as they apparently are even this time around especially given the harsh economic realities. But owing to the fractured and flawed tinkhundla political system MPs always lose not because of the persuasive prowess and superior debating skills of the PM – or rationality of his positions. And the MPs will lose again once the PM, who was away at the time lawmakers took positions on the issues in question, throws his mighty political weight around.

In the absence of a national housing policy, it defies logic why the PM should be exclusively provided with a E5.5 million – and rising – retirement home by the taxpayer. Why should he be special when, as the longest serving leader of government, he has failed to construct a national housing policy especially considering that the majority of the people are indigent to afford decent shelter? Why should the PM always superimpose himself over and be a priority ahead of the people?

As I see it, it is not a question of resources that government has - after 49 years of the country’s independence - failed to ensure a holistic approach to the provision of decent housing, a basic necessity, to the people given that in 2014 it allocated E1.4 billion for institutional housing for civil servants and security forces. A quick maths tells us that money was sufficient, at plus a million Emalangeni each, to provide decent housing for the entire adult population of this country.

The matter of the retirement home is not the only time that the PM leveraged his political clout for his personal benefit. He, or the government he leads, was after all, and at a great cost to the economy, instrumental in protecting the monopoly of MTN long after its joint venture with the Swaziland Posts and Telecommunications Corporation (SPTC) had expired because of his pecuniary interests in the former as an indirect shareholder.

The less said about the reversal of the ban on teaching of other religions in schools and the parking of the E20 million budget for Christian education, the better because, like the construction of the PM’s palatial retirement abode, these will go ahead irrespective. Lawmakers must learn to live with the fact that Parliament is nothing but a symbolic institution whose purpose is to make the tinkhundla political hegemony credible by projecting a false picture of a country with three dysfunctional arms of government when real power is resident elsewhere.

It follows, therefore, that while Parliament might be responsible for legislating and oversight but it does not and cannot control how the money appropriated through the budget is used. That power of how public funds are finally employed resides elsewhere. The need for political transformation cannot be overemphasised!

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