INDUSTRIALISATION OF ESWATINI

At the great risk of sounding like a broken record, may I again emphasise the need for the industrialisation of Africa and Eswatini in particular.

Unfortunately, this will not come about through a miracle but through conscious and deliberate planning with the backing of a collective political will. The biggest challenge facing the political elite, who have bought into this reality as a collective, is that they are failing to transform this relatively young population of Africa. The average liSwati living and studying in rural areas simply does not grasp the magnitude of industrial advancements in the world and what it will take to leapfrog towards anywhere close to that level. A whole new mindset is required from Eswatini’s policymakers concerning transforming the country towards the basic requirements of industrialisation. Our education system must be redesigned and refocused to accommodate the needs of industrialising our country. Useless colonial information must be removed from our syllabus. People must adjust their mindset, think big and start to believe that it is indeed possible to manufacture locally all that the Europeans, Japanese and the Chinese have manufactured and sold back to us.  

Globalisation is here

Most agree that globalisation focuses on the growth in international exchange of goods, services and capital, and the increasing levels of integration that characterise economic activity. In this sense, globalisation is only another word for internationalisation. This is also characterized by the opening of markets globally, which will allow the free flow of goods and services. The biggest challenge for Africa is that we have no high-value products or services to sell, except our raw materials and our human capital. The head of the Mansa Digital Initiative at the African Export and Import Bank, Maureen Mba,  said that Africa contributes only three per cent to the totality of global trade. Three percent only, think about that. Intra-African trade is widely perceived as low compared to other regions of the world.

The inter-African trade, in many cases, refers mainly to the larger products and ignores the informal cross-border trade between countries. The reality is that we are a continent of consumers who are not producers. We sell our iron ore cheaply to import expensive cars. We are not selling enough to the world. This means we are slowly running out of money and the opportunity to earn foreign currencies. Our currencies are weak, but we can earn in strong currencies, but we don’t have anything to sell. Unfortunately, we are too dependent on governments and foreign investors to start industrial projects that we can start ourselves. It is never easy but not impossible.

An exercise book manufacturing Eswatini

When free education was first introduced in Eswatini, the late Victor Gamedze and I embarked on a project to manufacture exercise books locally. I was given the task to put together the feasibility study and my good friend Gamedze would put together the funding. As a brilliant mind, he suggested that we should go to one of the top manufacturers of exercise books in South Africa and try to convince them to let us see their production process. We had already identified the E5 million German machinery we wanted but we had to see it in action. They refused to allow us into the factory floor at first, but Gamedze would not take no for an answer.

We eventually got inside the factory and were amazed at how simple the machine made the process look. Basically, a huge white roll of paper, glue, string, ink and hard black/blue board paper was fed at the starting point, and a complete exercise book came out at the other end. Three employees were working on the machine. The first one was in the material input section, the second in the middle controls, the printing section, and the last employee looks after the packing and box section. They never touched the exercise books, everything was done automatically. The machine does everything and adjustments of the various sizes, line spacing and margins are all done in the control room overlooking the production line. The raw material was to be sourced from Sappi, Mondi and other suppliers whom we are all happy to supply. The fact that we have a large forestry industry and have not got into the manufacturing of exercise book grade paper means there is still more opportunities waiting. We thank Mr Ashraf for revising Swazi Paper Mills.  

Exercise book marketing

The challenge now becomes the marketing of the exercise books. The smallest German machine of this make produced huge quantities, requiring us to get at least half of the Eswatini market and still export. We tendered for the exercise books, but government decided to split the tender into four and we lost interest. The Mpumalanga region had no local suppliers, and we were soon looking for a market there. The main buyer was the South African Government, which was not likely going to buy from Eswatini. We got positive feedback on markets from Mozambique, Botswana and Zimbabwe. They were ready to buy believing that a country like Eswatini with so many forests would have paper. To this day there is no manufacturing of exercise books in Eswatini yet the African market is so huge. Most Africans are young and need exercise books at schools, but we import most of what we need.

The funding model of the project had at the time been linked to the involvement of SNAT as an equity partner. We did all we could to convince SNAT to join us but in vain. The SNAT leadership at that time just did not have the business vision. The project was soon overtaken by events including the establishment of Eswatini Mobile and other projects Gamedze was involved in, until his untimely death. In Gamedze the nation lost a brave man of vision. Comment septembereswatini@gmail.com

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