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A CORPORATE PUBLIC SECTOR FATTENING RANCH

19/09/2018 04:06:00 By Thabiso Dlamini

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Can you give me a list of private sector companies that make profits in the half a billion Emalangeni mark in Eswatini? Very few!

This is why it was a shocker that the Eswatini Electricity Company (EEC) raked in as much as E532 million in their financial year 2017/18 against a E144 million profit in 2016/17.
Then and there, the utility had the gall to caution the public not to read too much into these profit figures because – of course – as we all know, a company can quickly turn the E532 million into a hogwash E3 million profit by assigning the money into various assets, reinvestments and other credible accounting gimmicks. Whatever the money figure that ends up being reported as ‘final profit’ is not the point: the point is there is a lot of cash flow going through the cashbooks at EEC while the general public suffers through expensive electricity units month on month.

Meanwhile, the Eswatini Energy Regulatory Authority has become EEC’s rubber stamp for approving electricity tariff hikes every year. How does the regulator justify tariff increments that range in the 15 per cent mark year on year when the EEC makes more money than many private sector companies put together? It would be forgivable had EEC delivered a glowing track-record in making sure that every liSwati had affordable and reliable power at their disposal.
What is unfortunate is that so long as the EEC continues to import power from South Africa, the issue of affordability will continue to take a back-bench.

This is because it is easy for EEC to simply connect Eswatini to the South African power line and make millions of Emalangeni retailing more than 80 per cent of electricity they do not even get to generate themselves as a power utility. EEC has no incentive to do the spadework of investing in local generation as well as working with the energy regulator to create a competitive electricity market that allows independent power producers to contribute to local power generation. Why should private sector companies get a piece of the E532 million pie?

The country’s economy is in the gutter because people holding key positions within the government engine fail to think beyond their immediate gains and personal pockets. Many of these government institutions, especially the utility companies, have become so detached from their primary mandate, which is to serve the public and make sure that people have access to affordable and reliable electricity and water. Not very long from now, the Swaziland Water Services Corporation (SWSC), another natural monopoly, will join the bandwagon of price gauging through tariff increments each year, squeezing all the urban and peri-urban emaSwati connected to this water utility. The water tariff increments will all be in the name of recovering the costs of connecting and delivering water to emaSwati’s homes and the ever increasing costs of doing business. It is all just a corporate joke: these utilities have become fattening ranches for the distinguished few who work for them without any tangible results on service delivery to improve the lives of the general population.

We have a drought predicted for January 2019. Please rest assured that SWSC has done nothing to secure water for this forthcoming drought. The water utility will argue that government has the responsibility to construct a dam or any large water infrastructure from which the utility can then extract and deliver water to our homes and businesses. On their own brains and muscles, these utilities are good for nothing! What became of the SWSC water pipeline from EEC’s Luphohlo dam? Nothing! The capital city still depends on water from Hawane, and when it runs dry, like it did during the previous drought, we will be back to square one. The bureaucrats in these utilities will continue to get paid their fat pay cheques and no one will be held accountable. That is how the corporate public sector operates in Eswatini.

For those who had the privilege or time to visit some of these utilities at the Mavuso Trade Fair, I am pretty sure you were fooled into thinking that, on the ground, Eswatini is making a lot of progress in as far as water and electricity is concerned. The reality is that our public sector is designed not to spend money on the things that really matter that are meant to improve the lives of you and me. Government and its many ministries, departments, units, and parastatals have become fatting ranches for the bureaucrats and their immediate families. As it is, many are fighting with everything they have just to make it to Parliament this coming Friday. They too want the opportunity to become rubber stamps and get some fattening from the government ranch.