THE ENEMY IS DISORGANISATION

Afew months back I had a social conversation with a colleague, who told me that she would love to advise Eswatini to stop participating in international sports competitions.

“I mean, why do we waste the little resources and fund our national soccer team, Sihlangu, to participate in Africa for instance, knowing very well that we haven’t invested much to be at par with the rest of the continent?
“We know the moment they leave that they won’t make it,” she said.

She went on to ask if it is permissible for African teams to just stop going to the World Cup (well, she was referring to the men’s Soccer World Cup) because, in her view, we make a laughing stock of the continent and waste our little resources.

“We need to start organising ourselves very well and invest in whatever we do if we want to be taken serious by the world as Africans,” she emphasised.  In a different manner, my brother once showed me an English Premier League soccer game on television and later switched channels to an African soccer game.

behaviour of the fans
He asked the question: “What can you say about these two games?” I started to mention what I observed; from the difference in the numbers and behaviour of the fans, quality and speed of the games, to the infrastructure and other things. He then asked another question: “Do you think, as Africans, we will ever make it to this level (English Premier League level) in our lifetime?”

I responded by saying we need to invest in something called ORGANISATION if we are to succeed in anything as Africans. If we continue with our disorganisation, I argued, we will never make it.
Look at how an organised South Korea overtook Ghana. In 1957, Ghana was the richest nation in sub-Saharan Africa, with a per capita income of US$490 (E8 820). 

That was nearly the same as South Korea which had a per capita income of US$491 (E8 838). 

By the early 1980s Ghana’s per capita income had been reduced to US$400 (E7 200) while South Korea’s per capita income had grown to a whopping US$2 000 (E36 000).  By 1990, South Korea’s per capita income was 10 times larger than Ghana - US$4 832 (E86 976) versus US$481 (E8 658) (NBCC, April 2017). Today, South Korea is doing serious work in a number of areas, including electronics and heavy machinery. I always avoid the blame game and complaining about things, and instead ask myself the question: what led to this?

I know that most people would start pointing fingers to colonialism and other things and avoid reflection and deeper analysis as to what led to this gap between two countries that had about the same GDP some years back? Furthermore, look at how the city-state of Singapore overtook many African nations in a short space of time.

Fifty years ago, the city-state of Singapore was an undeveloped country with a GDP per capita of less than US $320 (E5 760). Today, it is one of the world’s fastest-growing economies. Its GDP per capita has risen to about US$60 000 (E1080 000), making it one of the highest in the world. For a country that lacks territory and natural resources, Singapore’s economic ascension is nothing short of remarkable and they have achieved this through organisation. With Lee Kuan Yew’s emergence as prime minister in 1967, the nation was propelled from Third World economy to First World affluence in a single generation.

ultra-industrialised society

It is ranked highly in education, health care, life expectancy, quality of life, personal safety and housing; it is an ultra-industrialised society and trade continues to play a central role in its economy. Singapore’s tourism industry is also thriving, attracting millions of visitors on an annual basis. The country recently opened two of the world’s most expensive integrated casino resorts in the Marina Bay Sands and the Resorts World Sentosa. There is a lot that we need to learn as Africans, and in particular as emaSwati, if we are to develop but it starts with being organised and building strong institutions to take our developmental programmes forward.

Without being organised and planning ahead you never improve, you move backwards. We cannot afford to be cry-babies in such a competitive world, where nations are growing their industries rapidly, educating their people and implementing state-of-the-art health care systems. We need to think, plan, innovate and work really hard in order to succeed.

There can be no progress without organisation. Here at home I never stop thinking about the annual International Trade Fair event. The trade fair has been there for decades and over the years it has moved backwards until it became a shadow of its former self.
The problem is that the government thought the rest of the world was waiting for this trade fair yet people were busy building events for economic development of their people in their respective countries.

Today, you feel ashamed (if you are patriotic enough) to be called liSwati when you go to the trade fair and tell your friends from other countries that this is the country’s oldest and biggest trade fair run by the government! Without direct comparison, flip the coin; look at how the Bushfire Festival has developed in slightly more than a decade of existence!

Winner of the African Responsible Tourism Awards Most Sustainable Event Award in 2017, MTN Bushfire was also hailed in 2016 by CNN as one of the ‘Seven African music festivals you really have to see’. Also, it was listed by BBC as a ‘Top African festival.’ This festival draws over 20 000 people from all over the world, who come to Eswatini and make economic contribution to the country.

Each time you go to this festival, you find new innovations and you feel the growth; that it is better than the previous year – it keeps improving. That is the way to do things! Problem is that if you fail to organise yourself, you die the same way the trade fair has died in the country (yes, it died!).

organise ourselves
As a continent, we need to organise ourselves and start investing in organisation. We need to prioritise planning and start rewarding innovation in every sphere. Surely, South Korea had to do something different to achieve this milestone, and Ghana did not do something right for it to collapse in the manner in which it died in comparison to the former. 

Similarly, there is something that Singapore did differently in order to be this economically developed within a relatively-short period of time. We must organise ourselves: invest in education and produce our own engineers, planners, ICT gurus and scientists, who will take pride in coming up with innovations and start organising our programmes so that we can match the rest of the world.

We need to build State capacity to be more efficient and start organising things in a different way. You cannot afford to have the worst all the time: worst infrastructure; worst education systems; worst health care systems, worst military, worst trade fairs, worst ICT programmes (if any), worst soccer leagues and worst resorts.

Each time we do something, we must ask ourselves if it is taking us forward.  We must invest in ORGANISATION!

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