CUT WASTEFUL SPENDING FIRST!

We had asked for a pro-poor budget in this year of jubilee; a year of rest from all the economic hardships we have had to face over the years. Clearly this is not to be, as Finance Minister Martin Dlamini has decided to dish out a bitter pill for each of us instead.

He is determined to punish us for the poor economic state of this country, while totally protecting those next to him who are responsible for abdicating their responsibility to ensure we never get to experience what has befallen us today.
The minister has come up with every possible tax he can think of to ensure we have nothing worth calling an income or saving, yet logic dictates that the tax axe should have started chopping government’s wayward spending habits before all else. 

How does he explain how a country losing billions of Emalangeni to corruption, decides to cut the budget allocation towards curbing this scourge, if it is not to protect known culprits? Why cut the Health budget if it is not to ensure we suffer more drug shortages? Sleeping on the streets to get study permits may as well become part of our lives as no new universities will be built anytime soon, following the cut to the Education budget.

What hasn’t fallen though, is the total spent on security forces – which places Swaziland as the second biggest spender on security as a percentage to the budget in southern Africa. How does security remain more important than Agriculture, where we rank among the lowest in SADC comparatively? Why has he also chosen to remain silent on slashing the budgets for the uncontrolled travel, luxury purchases of furniture and vehicles and the bulging of the wage bill? Last year, the minister promised to reduce the number of parastatals that are draining the taxpayers, but did nothing.

Is he and Cabinet alive to the fact that with the hike in taxes on electricity, VAT and user fees, we are about to declare ourselves the most undesirable investment climate in the region, if not the continent? We already have investor unfriendly taxes such as businesses that purchase vans for work purposes can’t claim for VAT, while the opposite is true for other countries.

Corporate tax is also going down in other countries, which is stimulating business growth yet we seek to increase ours. It would seem there is no justification for the VAT increase apart from trying to make it convenient for the Swaziland Revenue Authority (SRA) to collect the refunds.

What about the inconvenience imposed on the poor as a result?  There is no cushion for the poor anywhere in this tax-all budget, one wonders if they are still desirable in the country.
Our hope now lies in the Members of Parliament to make sense of it all when the budget comes up for debate. May they drum some sense into the minister and his Cabinet colleagues and get them to realise the true meaning of realistic! 

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