What’s that noise?

What’s that noise?” asked a visitor when addressing a large audience of primary school children last week. “It’s their stomachs rumbling,” the visitor was told, ”they are starving.” Whaaat?

Yes, many of our schoolchildren are desperately hungry. It’s a biological fact that the intestines are constantly working to move food and air through the stomach. And when there’s no food, the intestines rumble – more like grumble. In another school, the head teacher reported that half of the pupils were starving, and many fall asleep in class.

If you aren’t moved at the thought of that, you ain’t human. Because there can be nothing more shocking than to see, or hear of, children suffering. In schools across the country we have youngsters in serious physical discomfort, while losing valuable weeks of development at school because they can’t deal simultaneously with the pain of hunger and the challenges of learning.

Well, the answer, but certainly not the solution, is entirely visible: A limited annual budget for the schools feeding scheme and delays in the release of funds, leaving many children starving, but also committed professionals within the public sector unable to fully implement their responsibilities. And the food delivered has nothing luxurious about it – mealie meal and sugar beans, cooked at the schools and served to pupils. But it’s a

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AFTER THOUGHTS GUESTWRITER

ODAY we get grapple with the idea of what leadership is and who makes a good leader. A friend of mine once likened leadership to being given, say, a hectare of unoccupied land. Imagine having virtually all resources you would need to do anything with that land. The same land, given to different people, can be used in an array of ways.

One may decide to leave the land untouched and be happy to leave it bare and undeveloped. Someone else may decide to till and use it for farming purposes. Another may decide to build a shack, and another a mall! This may appear over-simplified, but the point being made is that leadership is like being given a canvass, really, on which you can decide to express yourself.

Ultimately, leadership is the power to make a difference. In just the same way as the analogy of land or canvass, people will use their power to make a difference in a number of ways. Some will be happy to just have that power and be known to possess it without really making any meaningful difference with it.

They’ll be content with being called by the titles that the position comes with and use it in no meaningful manner. The electorate might meal. And, for, perhaps, thousands in primary and high schools across the country, it’s the only meal of the day!

The scheme faltered perhaps around 2019, and for no reason known to this writer. It can’t have been the result of serious fiscal challenges faced by government because all the fancy projects have forged ahead, amid the optimistic buzz language of our leaders. Yes, COVID-19 did a lot of damage, but the feeding of our children is right up among the top priorities in the queue for resources.

In term one of 2023, the needs of primary schools were prioritised, with high schools marginalised. In term two, the situation has been reversed with high schools given priority. Unless redressed, these shortages in primary schools will continue. Some primary schools have not even had food in either term.

Dedicated

There is no denying that at the top level of this government are some highly dedicated professionals. Handling and trying to control the public sector resources of this country must be a very difficult task.

Every new government receives what is known in rugby as the ‘hospital pass’. Those who hold the government purse strings have a challenging job, while gawping down at them in an obnoxious state of criminal indulgence are the thieves in their Porsches and Mercedes; and getting away with it!

Well done that government is finally bringing in forensic auditors; the best investment in recent times. But all the stolen resources are now gone. And do we know whether all those more than 100 outstanding corruption indictments from the past few years have received prosecution, and cleared the way for bringing to justice the latest bunch of thieves? If not, we’re just wasting our time.

In the meantime, what happened to the E6 billion windfall over and above the expected SACU be familiar with these types of ‘leaders’. These are the leaders who go through their terms of office and have nothing to show at the end, except self-aggrandisement and accumulation of wealth; what I call a ‘careeristic’ approach to leadership.

Other leaders take what I’ll refer to as the ‘shack’ approach to leadership. While they may want to be seen doing something, there is no real desire to bring about a real difference. They do the bare minimum and have no drive to be associated with greatness. They have no vision or ambition and they are happy to merely go for what is ‘safe’ and apparently doable so that they attract the least attention or criticism.

Leaders

Due to the shallowness of their goals, their projects need minimum participation of the people they lead. These leaders go through their terms leisurely and have a lot of similarities with the type described above. Eswatini has many of these in the political arena.

As I am sure you may agree, these two types of leaders described so far are not the kind of leaders we need. Under their term of office, very little is achieved, if any. They do not inspire us as communities and as a nation at large to dream bigger than our material conditions. They do not make us see and believe that a better life can be achieved.

Essentially, they fail us and prompt us to want to have them replaced. That kind of pressure makes them defensive and most of their time and energy is expended in trying to consolidate their positions, often through intimidation and repression. They have no place for constructive pay-out? That’s rather a lot of money – E6 000 000 000. It has been gathered that the relatively tiny E12.3 million of the approved National Schools Feeding Scheme has now been released and available for use.

But the scheme must be suffering the impact of heavy price increases, and it is vital that government facilitates the full coverage of the feeding needs of schools. How about a request for the early release of more funds from the 2023-24 approved budget, followed by a supplementary budget allocation later in the year?

Sorted

This writer has been informally told – and at a high level – that the problem ‘is being sorted’. Thank you for that, and very reassuring. But it still begs the question: When will food now be delivered and the process sustained to the requisite degree?

Government, please deliver on your promise, and make the money available now – every single day matters – with the supplies purchased and distributed to all government schools pdq (that means pretty damn quick); or earlier!

Despite the assurance, this writer still has the responsibility to alert readers to the story. All of us were children once. Just imagine going to school with a stomach screaming for what it needs.

Once that problem is sorted, and looking at the positives, as the football managers like to say, government should make it a strong objective to steadily enable the youth of our country to lend a hand. Some schools in the Lowveld do animal husbandry, raising goats for nutritious milk, leading to cheese.

Such activities need money for fencing and water access, as well as other inputs – donors please help – supported by the substantial agricultural skills available in our society. It ticks all the boxes.

The children learn the skills in classroom and implement them in the field; food in the stomach and trained to one day even become farmers themselves. And, later, take part in the Youth Agro-Enterprise Project of 2020 that never took off, despite the promises. Let me know and I’ll remind you all about it.

criticism and eventually lose sight of the fact that the powers they possess are only possible through the proxy of the masses.

In an ideal world, our preferred leaders are what I shall refer to as the ‘shopping mall’ minded leaders. These leaders, first and foremost, have a profound sense of duty and accountability to the people who entrusted them with power. They have the humility to acknowledge that the positions of power and influence they occupy are a privilege and an opportunity to SERVE; to change lives of the people for the better in all spheres.

Participation

Their approach to goals and vision is centred on meaningful participation of all and an understanding that no real change will take place if it is not a product of a shared vision. Such leaders, as Pope Francis says, are like shepherds who smell like the sheep they lead. This implies that they are part of them and journey with them in their daily struggles.

It is this intimate connection and fraternity with the masses that makes this type of a leader think beyond doing the ‘bare minimum’ or nothing at all. This leader has a fertile imagination and always sees what the led do not see. He/she inspires confidence in the masses and drives them to be at the forefront of their development.

This leader is as malleable as wet clay in that he/she is open to advice, criticism and knows that any activities or projects undertaken, any policies or laws put in place, have no place if they do not have the interests of the people at the core. This type of leader always discharges his/her duties with the end-goal in mind. He/she knows that ultimately, a leader will be judged by the ability to deliver. Will the 2023 national elections give us this type of leaders?