THERE IS A BIGGER PROBLEM…

Thank you to Parliament for taking a stand on the issue of import vehicles, notoriously known as ‘Dubais’, which are the vehicles imported from Japan and Singapore. To reiterate, these import vehicles are the least of the minister for Finance’s problems and there is so much to fix within government instead of taking cheap snipes at ordinary citizens. 

The country has since entered into a spiral of acquiring debts to fund capital projects and now recently for budget support. Every big development activity in Eswatini that is driven by government has a loan attached to it. Some of the projects, but very few, are able to pay for themselves but a majority of these frivolous government projects in the name of development have close to zero return on investment to the economy. 

Repayments

Look at the Five Star Hotel in Ezulwini, which is a government-led project that definitely will cost the taxpayers an arm and leg in repayments, the proposed Lubhuku thermal plant will also happen through a loan, the network of roads/highways being constructed also have huge loans attached to them, and the ESWADE development is also largely a huge loan to develop farmers and reduce poverty.

The question is, what will be the impact of the proposed E1.7 billion new Parliament building to the Eswatini economy? Are these really good decisions to be taking loans in the midst of a pandemic and economic meltdown? Will our legislators finally be effective in their job once they are housed in a cushy building with heated seats? Will Eswatini finally get rid of the stomach policies and install qualified people in that building to take care of emaSwati’s needs? 

Questions

These are the questions that run through our minds as ordinary citizens when we see debt being acquired not to improve the lives of ordinary citizens but to continue on the same path of frivolous spending on capital projects that end up costing 10 times their initial value only to fill the pockets of the lucky few who score on the construction tenders. 

What is really painful about government and the loans it keeps taking is that the strings attached to these loans end up sucking all the money and economic activities out of the economy. Recall that government took a loan from India for the agriculture sector but the country ended up buying the tractors from India with zero value created in the local economy. Now with all these loans that government keeps taking, it seems it’s a way of exporting our money to those economies where we secure these loans with no economic value stimulated in the local economy.

Government needs to practise what it preaches: with all of these loans, it needs to ensure that for whatever capital project being implemented, the procurement process gets locked within the SACU region so that government can stop punishing the ordinary emaSwati for the drastic drop in this revenue. There is a lot of money that is circulating in these loans that fund these capital projects, which for the most part the country can do without. 

The least the minister for Finance can do for us ordinary people is to ensure that the loans get spent within SACU. At the moment, the country is quickly turning into Zambia with all of these loans the minister keep tabling in Parliament. What is much worse is that in the process of acquiring these funds, we are shipping out the little bit of money that the country has to stimulate industries outside of Eswatini. 

Pay

An even bigger problem is how will government pay back the loan for the new Parliament building? Unlike the Lubhuku power plant, a Parliament building will certainly not pay for itself.

Anyway, what is strange is that despite all of these loans the country has been taking in addition to the government bonds the Central Bank has been issuing out to fund the fiscus, government still cannot balance its books. Government keeps taking money but on the ground the public sector and service delivery are still dire. Can we not take the E1.7 billion to fix the health sector so that the public hospitals do not have to run out critical medical supplies?  Seriously, another monstrosity down the valley to suck the economy dry?

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