Times Of Swaziland: SD’S ILO ELEVATION  IS A HOLLOW VICTORY

SD’S ILO ELEVATION  IS A HOLLOW VICTORY
================================================================================
By Vusi Sibisi on 19/06/2017 04:09:00


EXPECTANTLY, Labour and Social Security Minister Winnie Magagula was gushing
when interviewed on the Kingdom of Eswatini’s elevation to the governing body
of the International Labour Organisation (ILO).
Who wouldn’t, I wondered loudly, especially given the backdrop of the
kingdom’s historical position as enfant terrible of the ILO for her habitual
erratic behaviour. Before getting any further, I should state that the ILO
victory, if it is that, had not been on my agenda for today’s column not least
because it was unexpected.
But it suddenly thrust itself to the fore for a number of reasons, which I will
propagate instantly. Originally I was split between ventilating on either one of
two issues; the unraveling spectacle in our football apropos the Premier League
of Swaziland’s perfidious decision to experiment with a 14-team Premiership
next season and; the kingdom’s seemingly insatiable appetite for borrowing
substantial amounts of money specifically for uneconomical and unsustainable
vanity projects.
God willing I shall keep both issues, which bear on the tyranny of collective
intellectual malnutrition of the nation and a toxic body politic, within my
crosshairs for possible interrogation in future columns if still in currency.
Indeed these issues reminded me of the following instructive quotation from
Abraham Maslow, American Professor of Psychology (1908 – 1970): “If the only
tool you have is a hammer, you tend to see every problem as a nail.”
But back to the matter of the kingdom’s rare success – or is it – story on
the international front, especially given its traditional position as the black
sheep of the ILO family of nations. Of course Minister Magagula naturally
nuanced this country’s elevation on the ILO hierarchy as a victory of sorts in
recognition of the strides the Kingdom of Eswatini has made in addressing labour
issues that once relegated her to the detested ILO Special Paragraph.