King’s directives: How budget fared
MBABANE - Minister of Finance Neal Rijkenberg’s budget speech aligns to His Majesty King Mswati III’s directives.
The minister tabled the 2024/2025 Appropriation Bill yesterday in the House of Assembly, which was in sync with the King’s 12 directives given to Parliament. His Majesty presented the Speech from the Throne when officially opening the 12th Parliament two weeks ago.
The budget outlined measures to address key priorities such as health, education, youth development, agriculture and infrastructure, among others.
His Majesty gave Parliament directives that must be implemented within specific timelines to address development in the country.
Some of the issues the King touched on in his address were informed by the submissions made by emaSwati during Sibaya People’s Parliament last year. One particular issue raised was service delivery, whereby His Majesty urged parliamentarians to establish collaborative partnerships with other branches of government and enhance service delivery to the nation with the highest level of efficiency and speed.
When presenting the budget, Rijkenberg said they themed this year’s budget as ‘Nkwe’ for growth. He said the budget would enable and equip Eswatini to hit the ground running for economic growth and service delivery. He stated that there were two most pressing challenges, which was poverty and unemployment and the only real way of sustainably addressing these, was by growing the economy, which not only gets more people employed but also creates more opportunities for emaSwati to get better employment. “This in turn, will lift our people out of poverty.” he said.
HIS MAJESTY’S 12 DIRECTIVES DIRECTIVE ONE – TACKLING UNEMPLOYMENT: MET
The King said it was vital for MPs to address (unemployment) and come up with well-established strategies to achieve good economic growth for the country. MINISTER’S BUDGET: He said government remained committed to building factory shells to stimulate the entry of new investors into the local market and to create jobs. He said the construction of the Gamula and Hlathikhulu factory shells have been completed and they were expected to employ 1 000 and 450 people respectively. “Moreover, the factory shell that was purchased at Ngwenya currently employs over 900 people. The Ndzevane and Johnson Work wear factory shells are under construction and are anticipated to be completed this year,” he said. Also, he stated that the SEDCO – Youth Enterprise Revolving Fund business training, coaching and mentorship project which was targeting 250 youth – owned enterprises to create 500 jobs. “Government will continue to work on the construction and development of the Big Five National Park. This project will also bring about numerous jobs both directly and indirectly and should increase tourism numbers, and for the first time, the country will have free roaming predators in a conservation park,” Rijkenberg said.
DIRECTIVE TWO – COMPLETION OF THE ICC AND FISH: MET
His Majesty said the completion of the ICC and FISH hotel must be prioritised in the next financial year. Indeed. MINISTER’S BUDGET: Rijkenberg said in the 2024/25 financial year, government would be working towards operationalising the ICC. He said the ICC carried huge prospects of significantly boosting the tourism sector. “In this year’s budget, we will be allocating E1.11 billion for the final completion of the ICC,” he said.
DIRECTIVE THREE – CONSTRUCTION OF OIL RESERVE AT PHUZUMOYA IN THE NEXT 6 MONTHS: MET
The King assured the nation that the strategic oil reserve construction would commence in the next six months and this will fulfil the country’s fuel sufficiency objectives MINISTER’S BUDGET: While the minister did not allude to any allocation for this project, every 35 cents of a litre of fuel goes towards the Eswatini National Petroleum Company.
DIRECTIVE FOUR – INVESTING IN LOCAL ENERGY TO ENSURE SELF-DEPENDENCY: MET
The King said this required that the country must invest heavily in local energy generation to ensure self dependence which would be affordable and sustainable in light of the country’s 2025 electricity contract with Eskom in South Africa. MINISTER’S BUDGET: The minister said government remained committed to driving renewable energy sources in the country in line with the pledge made at the 28 Conference of the Parties (COP28). “These projects include the expansion of the Maguga Hydro Plant by 10MW, development of a 13.5MW lower Maguduza Hydro Plant, the procurement of 75MW solar power and 40MW biomass power plant. A total capacity of 12.91 MW was authorised in 2023/24, through licence exemptions awarded to solar PV-based generators focused on self-consumption, aligning with ongoing initiatives to boost local generation capacity,” Rijkenberg said. Adding, he mentioned that government was also undertaking projects to strengthen the electricity network infrastructure, to ensure network resilience and reliability. These include constructing a new 55KM 132KVA transmission line from Edwaleni via Siphocosini to Mbabane, to strengthen the backbone of electricity supply in the entire Hhohho Region.
DIRECTIVE FIVE – CONSTRUCTION OF THE REFERRAL HOSPITAL IN THE NEXT FINANCIAL YEAR: NOT MET
The King urged government to expedite the commencement of the process of mobilising resources for the construction of the referral hospital as promised by the friends of the kingdom. He said this should be done in the next financial year and no liSwati should die from lack of proper health services. MINISTER’S BUDGET: Rijkenberg’s speech did not touch on the construction of the referral hospital, but the Minister of Economic Planning and Development Dr Tambo Gina had assured the nation that construction would begin in the next eight months, as it was also part of the projects that were in the pipeline.
DIRECTIVE SIX – END GENDER-BASED VIOLENCE (GBV)-NOT MET
His Majesty called upon all emaSwati to join hands in putting an end to gender-based violence (GBV). “I repeat this call today and emphasise that we must remove this dark shadow of violence that is hovering over our society,” he said. MINISTER’S SPEECH: The budget speech did not touch on this directive despite organisations calling for a budget allocation to tackle this phenomenon.
DIRECTIVE SEVEN – UPGRADING OF ROADS - MET
The King said government should also implement a comprehensive national infrastructure programme to upgrade roads, among other things. MINISTER’S BUDGET: The minister said government had made a provision of E390 million for roads maintenance and major rehabilitation. Rijkenberg said government would focus on upgrading a number of roads from gravel to tar standard so as to enhance all weather accessibility of the targeted areas. “Roads spanning about 500km have been targeted for upgrading and these are spread throughout the four regions. With such initiatives, it is envisaged that economic activity will be stimulated and poverty reduced,” he stated.
DIRECTIVE EIGHT – TACKLING CORRUPTION AND PROSECUTING INDIVIDUALS- MET
On this directive, His Majesty said corruption stood in the way of progress in the country’s nation’s plans, programmes and projects for development. He said emaSwati had made their voices heard at Sibaya, expressing frustration with the lack of tangible progress in addressing this issue. MINISTER’S BUDGET: In reaction to the King’s directive, the minister stated that they were committed to dealing with corruption, money laundering and terrorist financing within the country and from both the public and private sector spheres. He said this would involve the active pursuit of effective prevention and investigative strategies, social re-engineering of attitudes to awaken everyone’s consciousness to the necessity of getting involved and invoke a stance for zero tolerance against corruption. “This will be done through the implementation of a cross-sectoral National Anti-Corruption Policy. The public sector will also be targeted in terms of the development of a National Corruption Risk Assessment framework wherein every Ministry or Department will be required to map out their corruption risks and then design a framework that they will be implementing to close the corruption loopholes,” he said.
DIRECTIVE NINE – ATTAINING FIVE PER CENT ECONOMIC GROWTH - NOT MET
The King had pointed out that there was a need to spring to action and target at attaining above five per cent economic growth, while tackling the pressing issues of poverty, unemployment and service delivery. MINISTER’S BUDGET: According to the minister, the goal of this budget was to keep the country on a path of sustainable economic growth. He explained that domestic economic growth averaged 3.1 per cent for the years 2020, 2021 and 2022, strengthening from a previous 20-year average of around 2.5 per cent. He said the estimated growth for the year 2023 was 4.8 per cent and the projected growth for 2024 was 4.9 per cent. Rijkenberg stated that this anticipated recovery would be underpinned by the country’s fiscal policy, wherein higher revenue mobilisation was expected in the period, and would result in improved fiscal space, promoting public spending and investment as well as spurring demand in some sectors.
DIRECTIVE 10 – ACCESS TO QUALITY HEALTHCARE: MET
His Majesty had said the kingdom’s national goal was for every liSwati to have access to quality healthcare as and when they need it without financial or service difficulty. MINISTER’S BUDGET: He explained that the problem of drug shortages could be managed by streamlining the supply chain and introduction of new rules and regulations. “Largely, strengthening the health system through investments in skills, technology, equipment and applying evidence-based policy decisions are key to achieving better quality healthcare. Through the transformation of the Central Medical Stores (CMS), government will improve procurement and supply chain management systems for drugs,” he said. He went on to state that currently, they were preparing the legislation for CMS to be a stand-alone entity, eventually becoming an State-owned enterprise (SOE), meaning that government would only pay for medication once it is proven to have been supplied to the relevant patients. He also announced the establishment of five new clinics.
DIRECTIVE 11 – MAKING ESWATINI A GLOBAL COMMERCE HUB - MET
The head of State said the private sector was expected to intensify its efforts of exploiting opportunities presented by regional and international markets. MINISTER’S BUDGET: Rijkenberg said in partnership with the European Union (EU), the International Trade Center and Business Eswatini, the prime minister (PM) they had officially launched the State Business Relations initiative, with the primary objective of establishing a competitiveness council in Eswatini. He said this was a forum held in partnership with the private sector, to drive investment, remove obstacles that frustrate and prevent foreign direct investment, and to drive legislative change to make Eswatini more private sector focused and business friendly.
DIRECTIVE 12 - SIMPLIFYING PROCESS OF REGISTRATION FOR SMES: MET
Simplifying the process of registration for SMEs should be considered by implementing digital solutions as well as reducing the tax compliance burden for small, emerging businesses as stated by the King. MINISTER’S BUDGET: In the same vein, the minister said there were programmes which provide support that helps entrepreneurs to develop and grow their businesses. He made an example of the business incubation programme, which offers working and office space, business coaching, mentorship, networking opportunities, market linkages and access to finance linkages. “A total of 155 businesses have been part of the programme in the Financial Year 2023/24, providing employment to 994 emaSwati and averaging about E5 million in sales revenue per month. Capacity development initiatives under this programme were focused on issues like tax, ENPF and labour compliance. In the financial year 2024/25, the MSMEs which are incubated within SEDCO will continue to be capacitated to upskill and expand their businesses,” he said.