The implosion

W Eare indeed living in history, Eswatini has never had to face such dire challenges in her history. How we circumvent through these issues will either make or break this nation of ours. One thing for certain is that Eswatini will never be the same after these. Minstrels will write songs about this time and timbongi will come up with praises about the unfolding events. The question is how will we come out of this? Will the nation still stand or we shall be nothing but flotsam of the spoils of a nation imploding on itself. Will we still have a functioning economy once the dust has settled? Will the dust ever settle? Or we are stuck in an infinite loop of indecision and failure to communicate with one another? I still contend that the dialogue is our best option, otherwise we shall continue to see a surge in the levels of violence.

Economy

A nation under siege is akin to an economy under siege. The economy does not operate in a vacuum, however, it is based on the social and political systems that mediate economic outcomes. As the nation shivers from the ongoing scourge, so does the economy. Economic institutions also fall targets to guerrilla warfare tactics. A few days ago we woke up to news that property belonging to one of the commercial entities in the country were set on fire with and an estimated direct loss of E10 million was associated with that attack. The real costs of this attack are actually extremely higher than the estimated costs due to the loss of property. Encapsulated in those, also, are the opportunity costs. By this I mean the costs associated with the alternative uses that the machinery allocated to the production processes, the jobs lost and the deliveries that are not made on time. The globe is already contending with a burgeoning inflation problem, so our current security situation does not bode well for our inflation prospects. If we cannot secure supply routes and supply chains, then we shall continue to face higher prices as commerce is forced to deal with the bulging costs of security. The economic pressures will in turn contribute to a worsening socio-political environment, hence the violence is likely to continue the current upward surge.

Violence spiral

I notice that we are stuck in a violence spiral and it might be catalysed by the economic conditions, which itself is contributing to the worsening situation. Undoubtedly the economy is among the major sticking points in the current debate, which has brought us to this quagmire as a country. We cannot discount the fact that the economy has been stagnating for over two decades now; the economy is failing to create jobs and the public service is also failing to create jobs at the pace at which the labour market is producing those jobs. These are facts that we need to deal with as a nation and confront them head on; we cannot shy away from dealing with them. Our people need an economy that functions, an economy that can create jobs and an economy that will provide adequate social provisioning. The current political deadlock is impacting negatively on the ability of the economy to deliver on those goals, the longer we shy away from dealing with these issues, the more we shall fuel the fire of this violence and we shall stay stuck in its vicious spiral for a longer period than we ought to, only if we put our differences aside and dialogue with one another, embark on nation building and reconciliation.

Constant in life

An English adage holds that the only constant thing in life is change. We need to change our approach to the way we have handled our politics, the economy and all our institutions. There is one fact remaining, our people are poor, unemployed and generally food insecure. The one thing we can learn from this is the fact that we cannot change our ills through the same policy positions that have failed to reap sustainable and inclusive development in the past two decades. We need to engender a new approach that will reap equitable benefits for all our people.

The dialogue

The much anticipated dialogue, in my view, is where we need to start. We need to come together as a nation and forge a peaceful environment which will be conducive for the establishment of a new economic order. The importance of peace, stability and security cannot be overemphasised as one of the critical enablers to growth. The bare truth is we have lost that and it cannot be restored at the barrel of a gun or on violence begets violence. We cannot ignore the fact that the major cause of the current instability is the political management of the country. A good political system ought to be able to always shift and adapt to emerging needs. One thing for certain is that democracy is always maturing, and must always adapt to the emerging needs. I can only hope that we give dialoguing a chance as a nation, lest we will perish.