Alpheous defends Minister Neal
MBABANE – Government Spokesperson Alpheous Nxumalo has defended Minister of Finance Neal Rijkenberg on his submissions on the use of national land to improve economy.
Nxumalo said the distortion of facts was aimed at sidetracking the minister from his good work in Cabinet office.
He said Rijkenberg was one of the hard working Cabinet ministers and has proven over the past five years to be the pillar of government.
Minister Rijkenberg submitted that before His Majesty King Mswati III at Mandvulo Grand Hall that Eswatini nation land was one of many ways of improving the country’s economy.
His submission received different interpretations, which Nxumalo said were being crafted deliberately to distort the gist of the minister’s submission.
“Government is well aware of the deliberate distortion of the submissions on the effective and productive use of Eswatini national land with a view to improve the economy of the country by the Minister of Finance Senator Neal Rijkenberg before Their Majesties alongside other Members of Parliament at Mandvulo Hall,” he said.
MOST ASSERTIVE
Nxumalo emphasised that the minister was one of the most assertive and hard-working State ministers in the previous government.
“He has come back in the same portfolio to serve his second term at the pleasure and appointment of His Majesty the King. In the previous government, the minister was viewed by many within the jurisdiction of the country’s political adversaries as a stumbling block to their agenda for regime change which can only be fast tracked by a failed economic, failed fiscal and by rising numbers of unemployment. The total sum of these failures would result in the Kingdom of Eswatini becoming a ‘failed State’,” he said.
He stated that a failed State was a final stage of a successful revolution and offered an opportunity for the recreation and reestablishment of another form or type of State. He said such ambitions remained the pipeline dream for revolutionary politics and the other dreamers of a different State.
He mentioned that Rijkenberg, in collaboration with other State ministers, formed a solid-rock-like resistance to any form of political manoeuvres which wanted to subvert the country into political collapse under their watch.
He said this was the reason the politics of vilification, adversarial and punitive were waged against Rijkenberg throughout his term of office by some social media platforms.
“A lot of negative and antagonists narratives were pushed through those platforms but they all failed dismally to leave a dent in the minister’s conduct of government business in the jurisdiction of public finance. He remained focused on the task at hand,” he added.
Nxumalo said government wished to state categorically clear that the minister would continue with his business mined attitude even in his second term of office in the critical portfolio of Finance.
He said the minister’s weapon was learn the political game of distracting his destructors and continued delivery in the service to the nation in accordance to the mandate of His Majesty and the people.
Though an attempt was made, Rijkenberg could not be reached for comment.
The minister was among the 10 ministers who were re-appointed by the King.