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IT’S NOT GOOD GOVERNANCE

19/07/2018 04:19:00 By vusi Kunene

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AT this time in the life of this country (would have loved to say in the life of emaSwati) I am fascinated by words of American orator Martin Luther King Jr, when he said;

“The ultimate measure of a man is not where he stands in moments of comfort and convenience, but where he stands at times of challenges and controversy.” I am of the view that this applies even on what a man does when given little power and be under no control of others. In the country we find ourselves in the moment where Parliament has been dissolved and ministers are left in office and we are now seeing them taking decisions without Parliament. I want to borrow the words of Martin Luther King Jr and say the measure of man is also during the time where he is given power and no one to control that power.

I think as a country we have to revisit our Constitution to address the power of those in government when Parliament has been dissolved. I know that as a country we are afraid of amending the Constitution but it becomes a problem when we see that those in office abuse clout because the Constitution is silent about it. When members of the just dissolved Parliament complained about ministers being left behind in office I thought they were just bitter but I now realise that they were doing their job but unfortunately they did their work when already out of office. If only they had addressed this when they still had the authority to do so it would have been a good move.

The minister of Finance introduced the Finance Bill in Parliament, which is procedural but what happened is that he introduced the Bill at the wrong time when parliamentarians were already doing everything in their power to please the electorate so that they could be afforded another five-year holiday. Parliamentarians tried to please the people they had failed for the past four years by rejecting the Bill. The Bill also contains a provision for the increase of Value Added Tax (VAT) and this was rejected by Parliament. Upon realising that parliamentarians were not prepared to compromise, the Bill was withdrawn. The minister and Cabinet decided to wait for the dissolution of Parliament to clandestinely introduce the increase regulation.

The minister was aware that the issue of raising VAT was significant to the nation and that it had to go via Parliament. But when parliamentarians rejected the Bill because emaSwati could not afford it, he decided to introduce it via the backdoor, when Parliament is no longer there to challenge him. Mr Minister, is your conscience clear with the manner in which you introduced this raise? My submission is that you, together with Cabinet, are stealing from emaSwati to help yourselves in wasting money through useless projects or initiatives and sometimes through corrupt means. I know that the language may be strong but that is my very intention. You must stop taking the people of this country for granted. You have gotten away with murder for far too long. The people Eswatini deserve respect. They have representatives in Parliament (even though most of the time they are misrepresentatives) who must approve what you are doing to safeguard their interest.

This does not apply to the minister of Finance alone. We are also waiting with abated breath on what is happening at the Swaziland National Provident Fund (SNPF). We have heard on numerous occasions that our government wants to access the funds kept at SNPF but it is unable to do so because of the manner the fund is set up. Now it seems like this government is hell-bent on laying its hands on the money that is being administered by the fund. From what I notice, government wants this to happen before the current Cabinet leaves office. We have heard that the fund is supposed to now pay grants for the elderly and the question is what will government then do with our taxes? Am I wrong to come to the conclusion that government feels that what it is misusing and or stealing from the people is not enough and it now wants to lay its hands on what the people are saving for themselves through SNPF?

If it does not want to get some benefits, why is it interfering with the operations of the fund? Why fix it if it is not broken? This is not good governance. Martin Luther King Jr once said; “We must rapidly begin the shift from a thing oriented society to a person oriented society.” He said: “Darkness cannot drive out darkness but only light can do that.” We, therefore, cannot have a corrupt free society when the people entrusted with running the country are using unscrupulous means to get what they want.