50 YEARS OF UHURU YET FREEDOM STILL ELUSIVE (2)

IN real terms economic opportunities are being monopolised by a minority, hence the majority of the people are living well below the international poverty datum line.

At the top of the heap are the political elites, petrified intelligentsia and hangers-on of praise singers, sycophants, bootlickers and grovellers shored up by a negligible middle class.

This unfortunate state of affairs is largely attributable to a skewed political system whose focus and priority is the leadership coupled with poor governance. The impact of this has been the creation of poverty, where there was none while also failing to create an attractive environment for investments, especially foreign direct investments (FDIs), in order to create jobs for the ever increasing army of the unemployed, a majority of whom are the hundreds of graduates joining the labour market annually.

By the way, the shutdown of Usutu Pulp Company, among others, counts among the failures of government taking into account the historic and sentimental value associated with that company.

While the National Development Strategy (NDS) authored by the social partners – government, workers and employers – in the latter part of the 1990s decade came up with a plausible Vision 2022, since nicknamed First World Vision, it was lent dysfunctional because it was truncated for its frankness and vision. The political reforms it envisaged as catalytic towards achieving Vision 2022 never happened. Instead, the people were in 2005 sold a dummy in the form of a constitution that is neither recognised nor respected by the powers that be. Effectively the constitution is a nullity.

As such, government is not responsible and answerable to the people, hence the continued poor governance and misplaced priorities, as manifested by imprudent management of the fiscus, misdirected expenditure on uneconomical projects coupled to a lack of coherence on national development imperatives. Huge amounts of money are poured on projects that are not economically viable merely to project a cosmetic façade of a trajectory to First World status on the appointed 2022.

Yet it is impossible to achieve Vision 2022 without first addressing the fundamentals, which apparently include poverty afflicting approximately 64 per cent of the people, wide scale unemployment, disease, etc. There definitely is a crying need for clearly defined and pragmatic policies and not to speak of political reforms to take the nation forward.

Yes, political reforms are the key to unlocking the potential of this nation considering the abysmal failure of the obtaining political system. Government must be people driven and not the other way round, a factor that was successively manifested at Sibaya where the people repeatedly passed a vote of no confidence on the government and going as far as demanding for the position of PM to be elective.
That the incumbent is still in office, and appointed to boot, against the will of the people is indeed instructive of the so-called democratic credentials of the much vaunted Tinkhundla political system.  

Some apologists of the system, who exploit its inherent weaknesses to loot and abuse power, will argue otherwise by pointing to the infrastructure development and other projects such as the KMIII International Airport as proof of achievement. While partially true, this argument obviously ignores the fact that part of the roads infrastructure – Ngwenya to Lomahasha Highway - development budget would have been shared with South Africa and Mozambique had government not dragged her feet and missed out on the Maputo Corridor project whose downstream economic benefits would have been a lubricant to the national economy. But owing to poor and insensitive leadership, we missed out on these opportunities when South Africa and Mozambique decided to go it alone while our leadership was procrastinating by diverting the Maputo Corridor project to the longer and far costlier Komatiport route.  
Save for the troubled transition from King Sobhuza II to His Majesty King Mswati III, it seems the April 12, 1973 King’s Proclamation to the Nation, which by banning pluralistic political activity effectively regressed the Kingdom of eSwatini from a Nation State into a fiefdom of the dark ages that it is to date, is perhaps the one poignant moment in the 50 years of independence. But of course it would be disingenuous to omit longest serving Prime Minister Sibusiso Barnabas Dlamini from the 50/50 narrative – even if it is for the wrong reasons.
To ensure his political longevity, he cultivated and perfected apotheosis alongside the cult of veneration of the monarchy. Hence even when the people at Sibaya and through Parliament called for his removal, and even calling for the position to become elective, he has survived to date. Indeed there is no telling if he will not be reappointed to form a new government with elections due later this year. For while the constitution prescribes a maximum of two terms, this is insignificant because it is trampled at will by the powers that be to achieve whatever objective they have set their minds on.  
But perhaps the greatest irony of the 50 years of independence, beside the absence of freedom, is indeed the fact that the people remain landless.
Yes, the kingdom still lacks a comprehensive and coherent land tenure policy, thus reducing the people to mere squatters in what they consider to be their country. Thus far there have been no efforts, at least visible, to address this very important issue, particularly considering the management of land and the fact that the nation is still not self-sufficient in its staple diet, maize. That on its own speaks volumes about how this country has been governed in the past 50 years.

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