HOW WILL OUR NEW GOVT ACQUIT IT SELF?

WITHOUT being cynical I cannot say I am gleefully optimistic over the incoming government changing the dire circumstances of emaSwati by taking the country on a new trajectory of renewal and prosperity only because I am a realist and not an infantile hypocrite who cannot see the wood for the trees.

 Were things to turn out differently something short of a miracle would have happened, including those charged with the stewardship of the Kingdom of Eswatini growing consciences and by progression rediscovering their moral compasses. This is underwritten by the truism that government is not in service of emaSwati per se but is there to serve a few, which by design is the centrifugal force of the obtaining egregious Tinkhundla political system. 

 As I see it, nothing has changed in the mandate of the new government than what obtained during the old order. Thus it would be foolhardy for any right thinking person to expect anything new to emerge from this situation. The same dynamics that drove the kingdom to the social and economic abyss during the tenure of the last government remain in place today.

 There are indicators that ought to become reference points apropos the priorities and performance of the new Cabinet in proving that the more things change the more they stay the same, to quote a French saying.

These are borne of a hypothetical standpoint of a government of, by and answerable to the people and dispensing of the reality that some compatriots are inured to their daily grind of deprivation occasioned by the political and social elites that they believe to be the natural order of things.

 At this juncture I need not belabor that issue of corruption, which runs in the national vein of emaSwati for the simple reason that I have touched on it on numerous occasions on this very column.

The second being that the new Prime Minister, Ambrose Mandvulo Dlamini, has also adopted it as his daily scripture on which he has ventilated a record number of times since taking office. At this point I am not informed if he has the slightest measure just how deep-rooted and institutionalised the scourge of corruption is before making those promises of zero tolerance. But time will tell.

 New Finance Minister Neal Rijkenberg seems to have a readymade and size fits all solution to government’s reoccurring cash-flow problem; that is freezing civil service salaries is central to his austerity measures albeit I am not sure if this includes those of politicians. The question is has he taken time to consider other options than trying to solve one problem by creating another problem.

If anything civil servants have been the brunt of business unusual of the late former PM when all other sectors profited from government’s largesse. Had the Finance minister been genuine other than focusing on what he perceives to be a soft target, he would have began with proposing downsizing Cabinet portfolios to be proportionate with the size of this country and its population.

 But of course Minister Rijkenberg’s mantle, indeed that of the new government, will be tested by the budget come next year. Failure to re-engineer the budget to prioritise national development imperatives other than funding a war machine in peacetime will only mean storing wine in old casks. A re-engineered budget will put education, health and agriculture at the top of the priority list and a five-year moratorium on recruitment in all the three security services.

Yet another yardstick will be the new government’s approach to the ever increasing number of State-owned entities or government parastatal organisations. It seems they are just too many proportionate to the size of the population. And that is not the only concern but even their governance that leaves much to be desired. As I write this column many of these entities are spending thousands of Emalangeni in congratulatory messages to the PM and some of his Cabinet colleagues and legislators, money that could be better used to cushion costs of services to the people. Some of these entities were created to motor the economic development of this nation but have become a burden to the taxpayer and are no longer catalytic but detrimental apropos improving the lives of the people.

Then there is that old issue of rule of law crisis that apparently also includes the Constitution. This has been in public display as recent as when the Legislature was configured, a matter that was also picked up by American Ambassador to the kingdom Lisa Peterson, who said may impact the flow of donor funds from the United States. We are watching!

 Last but not least, I hereby pass my deepest condolences to the family, friends and colleagues of the late Thulani Thwala. He was one of a few surviving journalists who still affirmed the ethos and ethics of the profession and refused to prostrate himself to curry favour from authorities like many of his peers have done. In this respect I dedicate the following quote by Ali Velshi, MSNBC (US) television journalist: “Journalism exists to bear witness, speak truth to power, and challenge inaccuracy. It is not about ‘positive’ or ‘negative’ coverage. Sentiment is irrelevant in the search for truth and accountability. Coverage that is legitimately negative in pursuit of the truth is not biased.”

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