GOVT MANUFACTURING STATISTICS

Governments that are not accountable to the people, which by their very nature are prone to dictatorial tendencies, often weaponise statistics to project themselves as efficient and successful when the reality is the reverse.

In recent times, the government of the Kingdom of Eswatini appears to have fallen into this category of governments that periodically manufacture positive statistics that in turn project a false picture of progress even when there is retrogression. This particularly pertains to inflation that, according to the government, remains at 1.7 per cent whereas in neighbouring South Africa to which the kingdom is almost completely dependent is higher at 4.5 per cent. It has also emerged recently that the poverty threshold has fallen from 63 to 58.9 per cent, so the government would have us believe.

Recently the suave and respectable Minister of Economic Planning and Development Dr Tambo Gina announced to the United Nations a 4.1 per cent improvement of the kingdom’s poverty situation in the past seven years, when accounting for the country’s implementation of the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) Agenda 2030 and the African Union Agenda 2063. In Real terms, according to the report presented by Dr Gina, this means the proportion of the population living below the international poverty datum line has declined from 63 per cent in 2010 to 58.9 per cent in 2017.

As I see it, and to Dr Gina’s credit, the report he was presenting was a product of the previous government. Of certainty is that the authors of the report were apparently fixated at projecting a positive picture of the kingdom to the UN, apropos the implementation of SDG One whose narrative is about ending poverty by 2030. This goal is also in line with Goal One of Agenda 2063, which is about the achievement of high standards of living, improved quality of life and well-being for all. Part of the report reads: “Development of the National Development Strategy (NDS) in 1997 was aimed at ending poverty in the country. The Poverty Reduction Strategy and Action Programme of 2005 was produced as an action plan for NDS implementation tailor-made poverty reduction by 2015 in the country. Its recommendations included the establishment of the Regional Development Fund (RDF), Poverty Reduction Fund, the Youth Enterprise Fund, the elderly grants.”

Implementation

Initially, it should be pointed out that the NDS has never had the political backing it ought to have received for its comprehensive implementation. Successive governments have merely scratched the surface by poaching parts of the NDS and if the economic decline in the past decade or more is anything to go by this has had no positive impact on the progress of the kingdom. The NDS did not endear itself to the political establishment that enjoys exclusive political power ostensibly because it called for political reforms, which it noted were essential for this economic blueprint to be effective in improving the national economy.  Although the NDS was adopted in the middle of the process to enact a new Constitution by the Constitutional Review Committee (CRC), the dawn of a new political dispensation never arrived when the Constitution was adopted in 2005. This is because the new Constitution did not reform the national body politic but, instead, enjoined aspects of the unpopular 1973 Decree ensuring that political power remained the exclusive preserve of the ruling class and that there was no free political activity that had been espoused by the Westminster-styled independence Constitution.

Paradoxically, an Oxfam report released at the World Economic Forum held in Cape Town, South Africa, a week ago places this kingdom at the top of the list of the most unequal countries in Africa. In real terms, this speaks to a huge gap between the wealthy tiny minority and the indigent majority. It follows, therefore, that it is unlikely that there has been a transition of 4.1 per cent of the indigent joining the wealthy minority but that the latter have in fact increased their wealth to further widen the gap between the haves and have-nots. As it were the successes said to have been made courtesy of the various funds that have been quoted are neither here nor there since in the majority these funds have been looted and pillaged. But even if they had not been plundered they are just too meagre to make any meaningful impact but are merely pretentious to project the government as being concerned about the impoverished majority when this is further from the truth.

As I see it, government cannot fool all of the people all of the time by manufacturing favourable statistics to endear itself to the people because sooner rather than later everyone will know that these numbers have been falsified. As it were, the essence of statistics, according to the internationally acclaimed former South Africa’s Statistician-General and Head of Statistics South Africa, Dr Pali Lehohla, is to create a conduit of trust. Thus the guardians of statistics ought to appreciate the concomitant burden of trust placed upon them. Therefore, any attempts by the government to falsify statistics in order to project a positive image to the people is bound to fail because ultimately the people will see through this false façade.

It cannot be that with the economy in decline there can be a decline in the percentage of the indigent. No, it does not correlate. Perhaps if the economy was on an upward trajectory the 4.1 decline in poverty could be justifiable. As things stand the economy is in constriction with a marked increase in joblessness thus directly contributing to the expansion of the poverty stricken majority of the people.

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