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ECONOMIC RECOVERY PLAN ESWATINI’S ONLY HOPE

09/10/2020 08:53:00 BY WELCOME DLAMINI

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MBABANE – Should the E30 billion Post-COVID-19 Economic Recovery Plan fail, government does not have an alternative programme to resuscitate the kingdom’s economy.

This was revealed yesterday by Minister of Commerce, Industry and Trade Manqoba Khumalo during the Editors Forum Breakfast Meeting held at the Hilton Garden Inn.

In the presence of the Prime Minister, Ambrose Mandvulo Dlamini, Deputy Prime Minister Themba Masuku, eight other Cabinet ministers and principal secretaries, Khumalo, who took some time to give a progress report on the plan, called on all emaSwati to make meaningful contributions towards ensuring that the plan became a success.

Influencers

He said Cabinet had since put together a team called the Delivery Unit, made up of government officials at senior levels (principal secretaries), captains of the industry in the private sector as well as some influencers in certain sectors of the economy.

Also to be added to this unit, Khumalo said, are members from civic groups following a meeting they had with Cabinet on their representation.

“We also realised that this plan has to have a strong focus on the youth, women as well as SMEs. We then also created a sector within the Delivery Unit that is called an SME, youth and women sector. That also looks at making sure that as we implement this project, the youth interests and opportunities are lifted up and are exposed and are given intentionally to SMEs, youth and women where it makes sense,” the minister said.

He outlined that the Delivery Unit had four categories: SMEs, youth and women; government projects; business/private sector projects; and the enablers group.

“The enablers’ group’s sole mandate is to look at each project and determine what government and government agencies need to do to deliver on that particular project. The enablers group is working at an amazing pace and they are giving us regular updates,” Khumalo said.

Investment

He said on top of this, Cabinet then put together a team called an investment committee that is made up of ministers who are in the sectors that the plan speaks to.

These ministers, he said, met monthly with the Delivery Unit to check the progress of the projects and to ensure that they unlock and remove whatever barrier that may exist.

Khumalo said the investment committee reports to the PM and Cabinet on a monthly basis.

He said they were very bullish about this because they believed it would work and were already seeing signs of progress.

The minister said there were projects that were already at initiation phase and there were those projects for which the barriers were being removed and that they were having multiple meetings and sessions looking to see how all these would come together.

“It is not like we have a choice; if we cannot pull this off we do not really have any other plan as a country. We are looking to this plan to deliver as a very impactful turnaround to our economy,” Khumalo said.

He said of the 97 projects that were in the plan (even though the number is dynamic), they would be implemented at different stages in the course of the next 18 to 24 months, and they strongly believed they would have created a number of jobs committed to in the plan. “One would like to implore all of us to be really excited about this. Find how you can assist; find how you can help. Constructive criticism is most welcome because that’s the whole point of the plan and it is our plan. That’s the kind of attitude I would like to implore all of us to adopt because the best way to take your future is to put your fate in your own hands,” the minister said.

He made special mention on the Eswatini Investment Promotion Authority, Business Eswatini and ESEPARC who, in consultation with the relevant ministries, put together the projects they believed had a fighting chance of success.

He stated that these projects would need enablers from the part of government for them to be successful.

“We are very cognisant that of the universal projects that are on the list, some may fall off. That’s just the nature of the beast, but we are also keeping the programme live because as much as some may fall off new ones are definitely coming in. So we believe that in the larger scheme of things, the E30 billion plan will be achieved in terms of new investments that will be injected into the economy over the next 18 to 24 months,” Khumalo said.

Business

The minister decried the unintended consequences of a crushing impact that the COVID-19 pandemic has had on business – big and small.

He said the country had gone through probably one of the most difficult seasons for business and that this had resulted in very high job losses and a sluggish economy.

“You will know that when COVID-19 hit, we were just beginning to see the signs of recovery; we were beginning to see elements of stabilising the economy; we were beginning to see the bleeding starting to stop but we’ve been rudely taken back down that abyss as a country,” he said.

The minister said it was therefore incumbent upon Cabinet to think through what the country could do to not just be victims of this pandemic, but get ahead of the curve by looking at how best to recover.

He said government had been struggling with balancing its own budget and had been really relying upon borrowed money (loans) to just balance the budget.

“It has become difficult therefore to see how government could pump money into the economy. We have seen other countries pumping billions and trillions into the economy, giving handouts to big businesses and tax breaks to small businesses and even giving cheques to citizens (in the US). Our government does not have that luxury and we all know that; we are still battling with basic things like making sure we have medication in hospitals,” Khumalo said.

He said one of the reasons that made this pandemic more difficult than it already was, was the need to help the health system to be equipped to cope and government was still working on that. Therefore, the minister said, government came up with a strategy in the recovery plan that looked at the private sector.

He said they would take the projects that government had already committed to that they believed had the funding because some of these projects still relied on loan funding, but there were projects that they believed would definitely have funding within the next 18 to 24 months, which they would include in the plan.

Accelerate

“But we will then go out to the private sector to find out what plans they have that need government to enable that they can accelerate and put on the table so that we can help them execute those plans over these 18 to 24 months,” Khumalo said.

He said the economic recovery plan was exactly that – a not all-encompassing plan that addresses all other aspects of life in Eswatini.

“It may not speak to the health system; it may not speak to the education system and justice system. It literally speaks to how we can create jobs; and in creating jobs how we can re-stimulate growth in this particular economy and most importantly how we can get back to a position where government is getting revenue from the taxes – these being corporate taxes, payroll taxes and spending taxes (VAT and associated duties),” he said.