HOW NOW MADAM MINISTER?

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It is often said that a true friend won’t agree with you to make you happy but will say what needs to be said whether you want to hear it or not.

This adage rings true for United States Ambassador Lisa Peterson, who now finds herself attacked by the Foreign Affairs Minister Thuli Dladla and some Members of Parliament (MPs) for trying to caution this country from actions she sees as detrimental to future support from those who can help us realise our national development aspirations.

What Dladla and the groveling MPs do not seem to comprehend-albeit deliberately- is that it is not the US Ambassador who has caused the national outcry over the purchase of vehicles by a government faced with a myriad of challenges in the midst of a financial crisis.

Her voice is only one among hundreds who are crying out for cost-of-living adjustments, jobs, scholarships, medication in health facilities and other unpaid government service providers. This is an ambassador who represents a country that has helped stop emaSwati from dying like flies.
Her country is the reason Eswatini recently celebrated turning the tide in the devastating HIV and AIDS pandemic, thanks to over E5 billion worth of aid to date to fight the scourge.

Dladla and the MPs make us truly ungrateful. Peterson has not set the people against the State, but has called upon the state to avert setting itself against the people.
The Foreign Affairs minister has described the utterances made by the ambassador as very unfortunate and promised to act on them. This sort of statement is equally unfortunate as it gives the impression that she regards cars as more important than people.

What the minister and MPs deliberately fail to grasp is that the US Ambassadors statement was not an attack on the Monarchy. Rather it cautions against the damage that the actions of those close to the King  have on the institution of the Monarchy which stands as our symbol of unity and peace which every liSwati must jealously guard. As for our MPs who seem deeply concerned about the failure of emaSwati ambassadors and diplomats to defend the country from negative reports, they should ask the same of themselves.

What of their failure to defend the people they represent from actions that are harmful to their wellbeing and that of future generations caused by a bad reputation leading to nobody lending us an ear or offering  helpful advice, simply because we can’t face reality. 

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