As the world commemorated the International Women’s day on Friday, I personally wish to dedicate this day to the Member of Parliament Nonhlanhla Dlamini. Bravo on the looming motion to reject, analyze and engage the budget speech delivered by the minister of finance recently. The energy exuded by Dlamini is relevant to the needs of the country and some of us are luck to have learnet from her whilst she was still serving in the women’s movement. I concur with the noble leader that “it is high time we put the interests of the people first” and I feel I feel is should say that only a women leader could have such a beautiful insight and be inspired to see justice and democracy working for the people on the ground. Further we are curious as to why so much has been allocated to the armed forces. What about poverty reduction, education, agriculture and youth development among other key developmental concerns. To think of prioritizing infrastructure and the wage bill, much against the advice of IMF and the World Bank to minimize it. In a peaceful country with a unique system of governance why would we want to invest so much in military? In his remarks the minister of Finance says “our economic growth remains sluggish and significantly below our potential yet he later paints a picture that the storm is over, meaning that the gloomy phase has elapsed, which does not seem to translate into reality.
I shall refer to the Civil Society’s economic recovery conference that was held at the convention centre under the banner of the coordinating Assembly of NGO’s (CANGO) which deliberated a great deal on strategies, opportunities and avenues that Swaziland may want to take advantage of, including but not limited to SACU Revenue, the manufacturing sector in Swaziland, mining and agriculture as well as the policies governing these sectors. To a great extent there was consensus that Swaziland could do better to revive her economy if she heeds advice and watch her spending habits and priorities. A great emphasis was made on putting in place the right policies to regulate these sectors and attract more genuine investment opportunities that will purely generate revenue for the country. One would have thought those submissions would have informed the budget speech positively in particular because they represent the views of the people on the ground.
It seems to me the minister of finance is misleading the nation by creating false hope that do not practically translate o action and sadly there are no pro active measures by his ministry to engage with the people largely affected by the service delivery in this country. A classic example would be the recent scholarship cut which was done without any consultation or even measures to engage the international community and philanstrophic institutions to assist towards educating the Swazi Child. While the efforts of investing in primary education is commended the reality remains that Swaziland is a developing country and very few average Swazis can afford to fund their children’s tertiary education.
My appreciation for the Member of Parliament from Ludzeludze is that she is outspoken and not intimidated by her fellow colleagues in the house. Women leadership has been questioned, feminism being viewed as a door for disaster yet families, communities, the county and the entire global community has a lot to gain from it. Hence I wish to support the proposed motion by the MP to reject the budget speech: critically engage, analyze and reflect on our spending habits, priorities and challenges as a country and challenge ourselves to work towards sustainable development.
As we may all be aware that the nature of our troubles and tribulations are as a result of bad governance and leadership; we have given corruption a place where and systematically secluded the people on the ground. I am tempted to site the twenty emalangeni hike for the elderly grants as versus the thirty percent hike increment for the junior cops. Clearly we are a drowning ship yet no one wants to utter a word and no one wants to agree that there is need to engage on these pertinent issues.
Speaking of 2013 as a year of elections, I can not help but wonder if we shall have women of substance, in the likes of MP Nonhlanhla Dlamini, unfortunately I forgot my zooming lens which is why I shall only refer to her and loose count. How much of quality leadership from parliament have we had? How many of our leaders engage from an informed, relevant and development inspired point of view? The answer to that shall be the disappearance of the vote of no confidence, which unfortunately vanished into thin air.
On a conclusion note, I wish to emphasize the need for Swaziland to implement her commitments to have more women leaders in parliament and stop violating her own constitution by not heeding. The constitutional clause on the election of additional four women to top up the women’s quarter. Who knows, we may have had a handful of Nonhlanhla’s in the basket, women who shall stand for equity. Happy international women’s day Swaziland, you have a diamond that shines in the darkest hours.
