Radical economic transformation

AAFTER THOUGHTS GUESSTIWBRIYITAER

LLOW me to begin my thoughts today by commending His Majesty on delivering a beautiful Speech from the Throne. His Majesty did indeed inspire hope for a better future, indeed the nation is wanting of a leader that will unify the nation, and faith in the sovereign is imperative.

I have faith in the sovereign and on our ability as a nation to band together as we enter an era of renaissance and building a new Eswatini that will work for all. It is important that we focus on national building and rebuilding the stability that the country is famous for globally. Indeed the ethos of democracy is co-existence, given diverging political, economic and social views.

We need to embrace the heterogeneity that is emerging as a country and learn to live with our differences and not kill one another.

We continually watch the socio-political dispensation in the country and we are looking forward to an all-inclusive dialogue, with enforceable outcomes to move the country forward.

His Majesty did indeed touch on all the pertinent issues that we need to deal with as a country, so to move the economy forward, we can only hope that the finance ministry will take leaf as they prepare to table the budget for 2023/24.

We are looking forward to receiving a budget that will focus on growing the economy, a radical budget aimed at invigorating growth in the economy or result in radically growing economy.

THE idea of discourse is something a majority does not understand, and this is because in any situation everyone wants to be right. For this reason it is easy to see that many are under the impression that two truths or more than one truth can exist and because of this reason the perspective of one must be shattered by that of another.

I in no way ignore the reality that the truth is a fact and therefore cannot be changed, it is obsolete and maybe as simple as the colour of the sky or the fact that plants need water and sunlight to grow.

Out of this box – on the subject of truth is the subjective nature of thoughts and beliefs that identify and are in ordinary discourse and this is the debate of who the best president is, the questions of gender inequality etc.

It is with great attention that I realised every big event is quick to become a sensationalised topic, so much so that there is a lack of sensitivity or at least emotional awareness to how things

INCLUSIVE GROWTH

It is important that we use the Southern African Customs Union (SACU) windfall to balance our social spending together with spending that will grow the economy. The country faces a number of social ills, including among others high poverty rates, high unemployment rates, and high disease burden. Most of these problems can actually be solved by growing the economy in a balanced and inclusive manner. We are contending with a stagnating economy, one that is failing to create jobs at the rate the labour market is producing the labourforce. We need to focus the fiscal purse towards creating the jobs that the economy needs. We need to ensure that we invest the resources in a manner that will give us short-term gains in employment and long term gains. We need to focus on growing the economy and creating meaningful employment for our people. We are hopeful for a much bigger share of capital expenditure in the upcoming budget. It is important that that we ensure that the procurement systems are gender aware and socially aware.

GENDER AWARE PROCUREMENT SYSTEMS

The budget speech is a public declaration of how public funds are going to be spent, it would give us hope if the minister could invest some funds into ensuring that the public procurement machinery is gender aware or socially aware. Government expenditures is one of the demand side policies that the government can use to invigorate growth in the economy. We envisage an increased budget, given the surge in SACU receipts. Procurement within the civil service is likely to also increase. It is important that these increases be followed by a deliberate effort to ensure that those transfers from the public purse to people’s pockets are gender aware and benefit everyone in the economy. When the government

affect or impact others. It is true that anything and everything generates opinions and this is cannot be avoided, especially for those that are in the public eye. The death of the pop star AKA has, in the depths of sorrow, shown how we are a society that enjoys controversy that only moves in the currency of controversy.

This means that we are also searching for situations that allow us to project our feelings and beliefs, and this is because as people we often lack enough space or room to express ourselves and deal with our fears and problems. Sometimes it is because the bonds formed do not equip people with the right mental space to vent and deal with any emotional baggage that they carry. More so in a society that is not adequately making or promoting mental awareness and normalising seeing psychologists to deal with their baggage.

Challenged

This has resulted in people looking for other ways to deal with their emotional baggage, looking for the closest outlet without a care for anyone else, and the controversy around the popular artist’s death has shown me this. The mannerisms and revolving acts have without a doubt challenged culture and modernisation and of course where there is a limelight then there are also fans.

Fans that are highly opinionated. The other side of the mirror is that even though they are just fans, they are also humans before that, humans that deal with every day pressures and are most likely to project the first opportunity that they get and this means that sides will be chosen. While some will agree with certain conceptions, some buys toilet paper, that is a direct transfer from the pooled tax resources to an individual’s pocket. Though procurement usually goes through a living economic agent known as a firm, which at face value looks to be devoid of a gender and any other social stratifies, just known as a corporate entity. Tear that corporate vail you will meet the people behind that entity and its identity. It is important that our procurement policies take that into consideration to ensure a balanced transfer of public funds. We need procurement systems that will take that into consideration the distributive effects if spending and the impacts on social inequality in the country. We need to ensure that the youth, women, girls and boys also benefit a fair share from the expenditures. A commitment from the finance ministry in this regard would go a long way in ensuring inclusive growth. It is important that we include all our people within the value chain.

ECONOMIC DIVERSIFICATION

Growing the economy requires that we also diversify the economy and improve on value addition and beneficiation of minerals. A number of opportunities exist within the AGOA agreements but country only benefits from a few product lines. This is telling of the fact that the economy is actually not as diversified as it ought to be. This is a common curse that befalls net importing economies, the incentive to produce a diversified product line within the economy rarely exists because shortfalls can be imported. We need a strong focus on import substitution and we can utilise the special economic zones to ensure that we attain that goal. In applying favorable regulations within the special economic zone (SEZ) the country can ensure to give that discretion to companies that will contribute to product diversification in the country. It is imperative that the position of government this year be growing the economy through sustainable market means.

will stand against them and both can be equally right in their own way in that regard. It is not in every matter that one needs to have something to say, but it is also not in every matter where everyone that disagrees is wrong and this is the premises of discourse.

The premises of discourse is founded on the fact that there are dominating conversations which tend to take the frontier and become the voice of truth.

This does not make all else wrong and rightfully so it simply indicates that the pool of knowledge is large and there is a need for knowledge to be something that we constantly pursue.

In so doing we expose ourselves to being open minded and understanding that there is so much beyond simply own thoughts and beliefs, that any occurrence does not have to be an outlet of our baggage and can be simply exactly what it is.

Moreover this is also a lesson that one thing being true does not necessarily make another false and therefore in any argument that revolves around perception, one is not necessarily against the other.

For example; a person can both be arrogant and selfish, or a shoe can both be stylish and still old fashioned, all these are examples of truths coexisting, supporting one does not take away from the other.

It is projection that gives the idea that it is and as a result one of the biggest mistakes we make as people is to want to go with the flow of the dominating idea, or to at least want to serve the ego by fitting things into the models of morality that we have created from our personal experiences as the only truth.