Times Of Swaziland: STABILITY CRITICAL IN FIXING ECONOMY

STABILITY CRITICAL IN FIXING ECONOMY
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Editor on 12/05/2022 08:26:00


Sir,
Political stability is a critical component of a very important variable in
fixing the economy, it speaks to investor confidence and consumer confidence.
Good luck in fixing the economy with poor investor sentiments; I really struggle
to see how government will be able to fix the economy when businesses do not
have confidence in the political stability in the country and ensure the safety
of their businesses.
Reassure
How do you reassure investors that they will not wake up and find their
businesses up in flames? I also struggle to make sense of how we grow the
economy when consumer confidence is also at an all-time low. The uncertainty
really does not bode well for consumer confidence; consumers are not likely to
spend much of their money in this economy. What this situation breeds is a
scenario of thrift, the better to save money in readiness for when we start
running yet again. All these variables are largely dependent on political
stability. Truth be told, political risk has always been a salient, yet dormant
risk factor in the kingdom, and events of the recent past have since turned it
into a salient and active risk factor.
Changes
This drastically changes the way in which businesses regard political risk in
Eswatini. It now carries a huge weight in the eyes of the international
community, who we hope would come and setup plant in Eswatini, and also it plays
a major role in the eyes of the consumers who government would hope will spend
their money on commodities. This also exerts huge pressure on State coffers,
since a lot more has to be spent on security measures than necessary. You cannot
fool the world to believe that there is stability and supply chains have been
restored when all that is being done is at the barrel of the gun.
Fact
The fact that you have police with armed automatic rifles along the streets does
not bode well for market sentiments on its own. It is an indicator that the
authorities know that something is amiss, and they are choosing a military
option to quell discern rather than finding a lasting political solution. This
is, however, not surprising given the way the country is run. It’s worrying
that the country is being run like an enterprise. There is need for a system
that will train and nature politicians as they grow in their political lives to
ensure they have the requisite experience and are rightly qualified for the job.