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WAITING IN ANTICIPATION

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SPEAKING my views publicly has made me engage in numerous discussions on some of the matters I touch upon. I found myself having to respond to a friend this week on why I still believe in a Parliament that has failed the people so many times

I told him that I am optimistic and never want to judge without evidence. It is for that reason that I believe in our new Parliament and hope they will do better. Their predecessors may have failed but these people promised us great things during their campaigns and we are waiting to see them perform what they promised.


We heard the King’s speech during the opening of Parliament and some have already dissected it and made certain conclusions. I, therefore, would not want to dissect it, but I believe the King gives guidance to those who have to do the work. The King does not go to Parliament to submit and take decisions. There are people whom he commissioned us to elect who are going to make the decisions on what is to be done and how it is to be done. Therefore, I did not expect His Majesty to mention salaries because he is never in the meetings that discuss them. That lies with the Legislature and Executive. These are the arms of government we want to see if they value civil servants’ efforts or not.


We are going to judge Cabinet based on what it does. Cabinet ministers have to decide whether they care for the people of this country or not. They are soon going to have the task of delivering the first budget in their term of office and they should know that ‘the first cut is the deepest’. It is now or never. We have heard the chorus that government has no money; people should fasten their stomach belts, and those are not appealing anymore. The budget is going to give us an indication of where we are going; it will tell us whether government caress for the people or not. A people-centred budget is what we have always been crying for. People are not going to enjoy driving on state-of-the-art roads when they are hungry. It is, therefore, of paramount importance that the needs of the people be taken care of first. EmaSwati will not enjoy seeing nice hotels which they cannot afford to use when they are sick. That is where we will see the intention of Cabinet and we expect them to lead by example.


The same goes with members of the House of Assembly. They have a final say in how the budget will end as they are going to decide how the finances of the country are going to be used. They must not then chicken out and say they are still new. That excuse will be too lame and will never be tolerated. We believe they did their research on what is expected of them even before they started campaigning. To then say they are new will be a travesty to the people of this country. Their predecessors have been labelled as failures because they were always opposing the budget that was not catering for the needs of the country to come back after a week and pass the same budget. We are expecting better from them.


I hope that, as people who campaigned in communities, (I do not want to say they live there because some do not) they know the needs of those communities and they will address them when debating the budget. We are not expecting a budget that will give more resources to security forces when there is no threat to the security of the country and give just a piece of that  to health and education. We are tired of lip service and actions showing a direct opposite. Human resource development should come first as we have seen how it helped Zimbabweans go into the diaspora when things went downhill in their country. So we need to have an education system that will provide for same. This will be reflected in the budget Parliament will pass.


I believe they will also look into the international commitments that government has signed and the Maputo Declaration comes to mind. The budget should speak to such because we have enough arable land to produce our own food instead of importing. The budget should at least show that we are working towards attaining what we committed to do. This will reflect well on the image of the country because we will be keeping our promises. All of this will be shown by what Members of Parliament would have agreed to when passing the budget. The ball is in their court and we are waiting in anticipation.



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