GOOD POLICIES CATALYSE ECONOMIC GROWTH

It is time for elections; the right time that presents an opportunity for building a governing team that we will entrust with our lives and those of our children.
 It is at this stage where we should revisit the pure and proper definition of what government is and what is the role of the electorate and of the elected.

I am not ashamed to repeat my consistent definition of what is government. But before I do so, it would be appropriate to first cite the elements of good governance which are; the rule of law, because governance will always require legal fairness and justice through fair legal frame works which are enforced by impartial regulatory bodies for the full acquisition of justice for all citizens irrespective of colour, gender, social status, sexual preference, religion, age, race and political affiliation.

important character

Transparency is yet another very important character and ingredient which is imperative for good governance to prevail. This means there should be open and corrupt-free systems in government’s public administration offices to ensure effective and efficient service delivery to the citizens.  While transparency is very important, it is accountability that ensures that civil service is productive and efficient at their duty stations.

Usually, it is the easiest thing to call civil servants to account because most of their duties are measurable and quantifiable, which result in their performance targets being visible even though the benchmarks will always vary according to get the different sectors. For example, it is easy to measure how many cans of beer are produced per hour at a brewery, but you would need a different benchmark to determine the productivity of a school and productivity in a factory. This becomes more difficult in politics to measure productivity because a country may have many natural resources and still be poor. 

Others may have fewer natural resources and be very rich and progressive, and others may not have natural resources but aggressively empower their human resource to be in a position to produce a populace that is dynamic, innovative and creative and able to think outside the box.

These attributes give them the ability to become highly productive and competitive. Some of the countries who do not have natural resources include but not limited to Japan and Singapore. One of the countries with limited natural resources, but uses what it has effectively and efficiently is Botswana.

resource development

Some countries in the African region have ensured that they pump more money into human resource development and that has resulted in them exporting skilled labour and professionals abroad. I am happy to say Eswatini did well in the past because we can show case some of our own who are working abroad, and adding value to the economies of foreign soil.
Unfortunately, in as far as the education standard is concerned, as a country; we have undoubtedly dropped the ball.

While democracy is generally defined as a government of the people for the people by the people themselves, governance is a relationship process that allows the governing to lead freely with the accorded mandate of the electorate.
Furthermore, in this relationship, the governed are the paymaster and the governing are the servants of the people and not the other way round.

As they are mandated by the electorate to use their taxes to provide all forms of services including but not limited to affordable and accessible clean water, affordable and accessible electricity, quality public health services, quality drivable and passable road networks both in rural and urban areas, quality education, quality and decent job opportunities, quality and accessible funding for entrepreneurial development, clear strategies of formalising the informal sector.

guarantee accountability

We all know that government has three arms that provide checks and balances to guarantee accountability and transparency. Parliament makes laws and provides oversight, the Judiciary ensures that equal justice for all prevails and laws are followed and the Executive is responsible for quality service delivery.
The other very important good characteristic of good governance is none other than responsiveness of a government to the concerns of the people. This characteristic cannot always be achieved by either throwing money to the problem or running away from the people.

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