Times Of Swaziland: WASTED OPPORTUNITIES

WASTED OPPORTUNITIES
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The Editor on 11/09/2018 03:32:00


Sir,
Fifty years after independence, Eswatini lies wrecked and wobbled. A country
that breathed much hope and inspiration 50 years ago, is today a sad and
regrettable instance of what a nation should not be.
Eswatini is today a land of endless tears and misery. It is a country that best
typifies human failure. It is a country that the failure of humanity and its
case is worsened by the loss of hope that things may ever get better again. It
is so bad that a majority of emaSwati don’t even know when independence day is
because it really means nothing to their lives.
The lofty dream of a small country that would stamp its feet in the comity of
nations in record time has been destroyed. Rich in national resources and
educated people who showed promise to be a force in the world, there is no
reason to see Eswatini in the storm tossed State it is today. Sadly, 50 years
later, Eswatini cuts a sorry image of a caricature of a nation as unbridled
corruption and graft continue to freely ravage the country and its citizens. All
the high hopes, the lofty dreams and aspirations that heralded independence,
have all percolated, leaving a fractured insecure and predatory nation.
The kingdom is a sprawling land of tears, where insecurity, poverty, disease and
untamed want have combined to make mincemeat of a hopeless and hapless
citizenry. No bond of unity, no philosophy and no ethos hold the disparate
tendencies that were bonded to form the country. Life continues to worsen as all
economic indices veer towards regression, even with increased revenue. On its
50th birthday, life looks dreary and gloomy for emaSwati as over 60 per cent of
them live in abject poverty.
With politicians who fire the ambers of corruption, official graft and public
stealing, the country holds no credible hope of revival from the atrophy that
shackles it at present. Unemployment has reached bestial heights as industrial
mortality and investment flight riddle the economic space.
The education and health sectors experience unceasing decay while the vicious
circle of poverty makes its unimpeded rounds across the length and breadth of
the country.
Eswatini cannot guarantee fairly stable governance. At 50 years, the country has
irrevocably broken down as it holds no hope for its teeming citizenry. It is a
story of wasted opportunities and it is a depiction of a house that is falling.
Colleen M