‘SITAWUBONA KHONA’

MANY people who care about the economy of the country converged at Happy Valley Hotel for the post-budget seminar yesterday morning, hoping to engage the Finance Minister Martin Dlamini and his team in a ‘robust’ discussion.

As much as this was more of an opportunity to vent, given that the horse had long bolted as far as our input towards shaping the budget was concerned, it is fair to say many left disappointed that only three questions were posed, albeit anonymously.

The minister had to be excused for Parliament business, which deprived us of some immediate answers. The timing of his exit coincided with some biting submissions by President of the Federation of Swaziland Employers and Chamber of Commerce (FSE&CC) Andrew le Roux, who had plenty of practical solutions for government.

Le Roux was one of the panellists selected from a cross-section of the business sector, civil society, youth, academia and politicians.
At the end of their submissions, it was evident that the budget tabled by the minister has no public or corporate support. Each of the speakers raised the fundamental need to consult prior to the formulation of the budget if it will ever register as a people’s budget that works for this country.

Le Roux correctly pointed out how there seemed to be no clear strategy on how to get the country out of the woods. He lamented how the best response he could get from those who should know the answers and offer solutions was; “sitawubona khona” (we just hope things will get better).

If this is the type of response being given to the leader of the private sector, then we have even more reason to worry that the situation is about to get worse. He said industry was ready and willing to play its part but was being frustrated at the lack of consultation prior to proposing tax or legislative reforms.

The amount of time it takes to register a business, the high corporate tax when other countries are reducing it, the lack of accountability in providing services to the people, rising corruption levels and other business restrictive processes cited by the FSE&CC portrayed a government that has rolled out the red tape and not the red carpet for investors.

University lecturer Sanele Sibiya also warned government against taxing people for the wrong reasons without any tangible effort to curb recurrent expenditure. He called for an increase in zero rated commodities to cushion the poor, otherwise in its current form; the minister’s budget is taxing the poor to fund the rich. How true.

FESBC CEO Duduzile Nhlengetfwa said time for lip service was over. She said if government believed that the sustainability of the local economy was dependent on a strong SME sector, it must walk the talk. The budget allocation for SMEs has been found wanting. “There can be nothing about us without us,” she said, decrying the lack of consultation with the people on the ground.

Civil society representative Hlobisile Nxumalo called for an open budgeting process, where citizens would actively participate. The lack of participation in the process was evident in the failure to meet internationally recommended allocations to priority sectors such as health.

Nxumalo further cautioned that while they recognise the need to spend on celebrating the country’s milestones over the past 50 years, the expense on the celebrations should reflect the dire state of our economy.

Speaking for the youth was Thabiso Mdluli from Waterman, who shared the sentiments of another panellist from SERPAC, Dr Thula Dlamini on the need to invest in technical vocational education in order to meet the direct needs of industry. He said it was time to ‘think globally and act locally’ because Swaziland was too small an economy to generate the revenue required to serve its needs.

The minister’s departure was the party pooper of an otherwise well organised event. Nobody was assigned to stand in for the minister who left with most of his officials. We were left with an officer who was only mandated to communicate with us via email and promised replies in the next seven working days. We were also assured that the event was being recorded, so that the minister and his officials would get to hear every word of it.

He may never know who said what because there was no roving microphone for the participants and submissions were limited to a group of panellists; not even for those who have no fear to speak out. 

Nobody knows if the Finance minister would ever find time to get the recording and watch it together with his Cabinet colleagues. It is not too late to act on these suggestions. However, it will come as no surprise if they only go as far as; ‘sitawubona khona.’
 

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