NO PRESCRIPTIONS BUT EXPECTATIONS

A prescription on how to run government for the newly appointed prime minister would be uncouth. However, we can only hope that he will have the country’s best interest at heart, and that for the most part, he will keep a sharp eye on effecting economic policy changes that will benefit the masses.

This is an important point: the PM can either choose to block us from reaching our First World promise or free the economy and take us on a highway to Vision 2022.
Though finding middle ground between the politics and the real economic issues can be a gruesome aspect of the PM position, it is actually clear what needs to happen in Eswatini’s economy.

In fact, his excellency in his Sibaya submission touched on these key issues and the good thing is that he has the CV/credentials to do the job. His job description, really in a nutshell, is to lead government in effecting social and economic development in Eswatini. He has to revive and lead the implementation of the National Development Strategy, which comes to a close in less than five years in 2022.

pipeline

The PM position is not a position of power to create pipeline of wealth for his family and his children’s children alone, but one that comes with great responsibility to all emaSwati.

It is a position that requires a visionary and exceptional leader who will see every liSwati getting a piece of the economic pie for generations to come. When the PM forgets that so that he only focuses on his own personal gains, the rest of government will follow suit, corruption will thrive and the economy will be in the gutter.

The newly-appointed PM should consider the following simple expectations we have for his tenure:
We need a strong private sector to develop and grow the economy. If government keeps expanding at a faster pace than the private sector grows, the more deadweight government absorbs and carries at the cost of the taxpayer. That deadweight will keep demanding more cost-of-living adjustments from government while the economy continues to shrink.

approving

A lopsided public sector is all the reason why government keeps increasing and sneaking in new types of taxes. Government jobs simply mean meeting about meetings, processing forms, approving or declining business and general public requests, being important, among many other useless routines that can be automated.

The question is: will our new PM be brave enough to trim all the deadweight, automate government processes and services, and leave a lean government that will perhaps cost the g-wallet less than 20 or 25 per cent of government expenditure?

Cut useless spending and ensure that government officers and top officials are able to account for every second, minute and hour they spend on government’s payroll.

We are tired of people getting paid to do nothing so that at the end of the year they can demand more pay and benefits. The PM must crack the whip on performance targets within all the government ministries, including within the inner circle of Cabinet itself. In the private sector, when a person does not do the job, they get fired and that should be the case with the public sector. Enough with the transfers that keep rotating useless officers from one department to another.
Cut the bloated ministries, parastatals and commissions. There is a lot of duplication of work within government yet it still takes ages to get anything done. The PM should simply consolidate and get rid.
exhausted
Cut tax and put money in people’s hands. We are exhausted by all the tax we have to pay. It costs money even to get out of the house now. The PM, as a corporate and private sector man, should really understand this point. The economy cannot get anywhere if people do not have money in their pockets, if the little bit of money they make government finds ways to take it so it can pay for its out of control expenditures. EmaSwati have suffered and the taxman needs to cut us some slack. I mean, the taxman cashed-in on fines and tax compliance money and now the business and personal accounts are just dry.
Most importantly, the PM should exercise caution with old geezers and all the ornaments that have become part of the government system for years. The country is in ruins because of poor leadership and the people the system kept over the years without allowing new and fresh minds to shake the way government does its business. The PM and his new government need to try new ways of growing the economy and take all the economic and social policies that have collected dust in the different ministries with a grain of salt.
With these few considerations, we hope the newly-appointed PM will shake the economy for the better and unlock the economic potential of the kingdom.

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