Times of Eswatini

Securing the future

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I Thas been a while since we got entrenched into a political impasse as a nation and it seems there is no end in sight. The obtaining political conditions are not conducive for economic growth and job creation. It presents with it a situation of perpetual risk and uncertaint­y, conditions which repel capital, hence the future of the economy remains bleak. Today I will venture into uncommon ground and give my opinion on the political deadlock in the country and the impacts of the political on the economic.

Accountabi­lity

It all started with calls for accountabi­lity, Members of Parliament demanding a transparen­t model of government that ensures the elected officials remain accountabl­e to the electorate. In my opinion, this would have positioned the economy towards a balanced growth path. A political system that bothers on accountabi­lity produces public policy which improves the lives of the population because the longevity of one’s political ambitions are at the hands of the population not with the elite.

Politics of resource allocation

How a government allocates resources is usually a strong determinin­g factor on whether they will win the next election or not. It is my profession­al opinion that if we had accountabi­lity in our system, the unemployme­nt problem would not be this dire, the poverty levels would not be this high and a lot of our social problems would not be so dire. I say this because as a country we tend to allocate resources where we do not reap much benefit, for example, the proposed Parliament building among others.

There is no incentive for the ones in power to thrive for a fair allocation of resources for the masses, since they are not accountabl­e to the masses, but accountabl­e to the appointing authority. The country’s resource allocation mechanism lacks social justice, yet studies show that a just and accountabl­e political system is a pre-condition for a fair distributi­on of the economic resources in any society.

A fair resource allocation can be attained if we have benevolent authoritie­s. In economics a benevolent authority refers to an economic agent responsibl­e for allocating resources within a household or the macroecono­my, who ensures that they are altruist in their resource allocation decisions rather than being atomistic.

Ideally the economic agent we postulate in orthodox economics is a non-satiable, self-serving agent, who seeks to maximise only their gains (atomistic economic agent). The atomistic economic agent cannot even fathom the benefits that come with altruism and doing good for the others, and just being good, for goodness sake.

Centralise­d power, economic resource allocation

Given the pertaining political system as a country, we would only be able to attain a fair allocation of the economic and political resource if we had benevolent authoritie­s who feel the plight of the people and seek to allocate resources to maximise the utility (welfare) of all emaSwati. The current allocation of the resources shows that the current system is not at all benevolent, but rather an atomistic one. It is my profession­al opinion that the obtaining political system is a bottleneck to economic growth. Hence calling the dialogue and forging a way forward may solve a biding growth constraint and set the economy back on the growth path. The decision to delay the call for dialogue and reforms encapsulat­es with it a very high economic cost, every day something burns, the nation is radicalise­d and the economic conditions are fertile ground for radicalisa­tion.

The right channels

The Constituti­on outlines how this impasse is to be handled, however we need to evaluate the sufficienc­y of the constituti­onal route in solving the impasse. Albeit the Constituti­on identifyin­g Sibaya as a gathering of bantfwa ’benkhosi, tikhulu of the realm and all adult citizens as an annual general meeting. As a platform for an annual general meeting for the nation to present the views of the nation on pressing and controvers­ial issues.

The Constituti­on does not state what happens to the views the nation expresses during Sibaya, do they have any validity whatsoever? There is just no mechanism for Sibaya to make decisions and enforce those decisions. Sibaya is meant to be an annual event but we all know that it has not been constitute­d annually and no one has been held accountabl­e for not calling this annual general meeting.

Towards the future

The monarchy is meant to be a symbol of unity for the nation. The divisions in this country have never been so apparent. If the current state continues, then we are funding with public funds an institutio­n that is failing in its role, which is a misallocat­ion of resources and needs to be re-evaluated. It is imperative now more than before that the monarchy plays its role before we are driven into further disrepute. We need a return to some form of peace and stability and get the economy growing again. become by minimising our diversity and labeling our way of life as backwards.

There are a few days nowadays that we wear our attire, in fact we call them ‘traditiona­l’ because it has simply been associated with time, a time that it is no longer relevant to today unless or under the gist of ‘culture dat’ or traditiona­l weddings and events. Is this a matter of identity misplaceme­nt? That evolution in it’s path changes our perspectiv­e of self and the more advanced the world becomes, the more hate we place on culture and the pride we hold in our culture.

Identity

The inability to view cultural diversity and identity outside of the now is problemati­c because it teaches the generation­s that follow that appreciati­on and the love of Afrocentri­city is found in comparison of the now. It removes culture on it’s own and places it side by side with the world they come into, a modernised one and teaches them to associate African-ness with old school and poverty.

The beauty and nature of our ways is being lost in associatio­n in contempora­ry Africa. If we can accept and agree that modernisat­ion is a culture and way of life adopted from European and American ways of life, then we can, in essence, bring ourselves to the understand­ing that we are nothing more than Africans living through societal expectatio­ns set by a dominating culture worldwide and if we can willingly accept it, then we can accept our own. Not simply as a measure of history, but as a part of today’s world and rewrite the narrative by disassocia­ting what it means to be African with the norm and not as an apt reflection of a past era.

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