A disgrace!

The government should be thoroughly ashamed of itself to even think of saying that there is no money to pay bogogo, the elderly, let alone actually declare such a thing. We can all see that there was money to pay MPs a fat increase, there was money to squander on the E50 million sham, there are enough millions to let slip through all of our fingers every month, and there is plenty of money to be allocated to white elephant projects—but there is not enough to pay a measly, miserly, hopelessly inadequate E80 per month to living, breathing, fellow human beings? I fear they won’t be living and breathing much longer if things continue like this. A government that doesn’t care for its people is not a government worthy of the name.
Instead of action to pay the thousands upon thousands of marginal and vulnerable people of this nation—not only bogogo, but also OVCs and widows and everyone unfortunate enough to need a government hospital—we get a fatuous statement issued by the PM’s office, which says absolutely nothing real since it contains only smoke. Consider this example: ‘I have no doubt that this Government, when benchmarked with all other African nations, will be found to be governing in the upper quartile and that the well-being of its people will also compare favourably.’ This is nothing but smoke. It doesn’t matter who you compare it with: the bottom line is that people are starving in this country, people are dying for lack of decent medical care, orphans are not getting the education they need, and so on. This is real, and it’s obvious. Saying that this Government compares ‘favourably’ with some other nations is not saying that we are doing well, only that (perhaps) others are making an even bigger mess of things than we are. But calling a spade a ‘digging implement’ doesn’t change it from being a spade.
A nation’s most precious resource is always its people, and at the moment, right now, right here, a majority of our people are suffering. Two-thirds of the nation are trying to live on less than seven emalangeni per day—is that really some kind of success, a rare kind of positive achievement? Do you suppose these people didn’t also have dreams and hopes and human aspirations just like the rest of us? For sure they did.
Statements are nothing more than statements; they don’t put food on anyone’s table. As the apostle James remarked two thousand years ago, words without actions are dead. We talk and talk and talk; we instigate Commissions and indabas and Dialogues; we publish policy statements; but at the end of it all, is anything actually done?
The only true way forward for us as a nation is to stop looking over the fences at our neighbours, whether near or far, and instead get our act together here at home. Of course we’re not competitive—how can we be if so many of our people get sub-standard education and healthcare? How can you think and act like an entrepreneur if you can’t even get a decent breakfast? Instead of saying that there is no money for bogogo and OVCs and drugs for hospitals, it would be much wiser to decide that some projects or facelifts or whatever can wait instead. I tell you, if government begins to get its act together and show by its actions—and not just its talk—that it really cares about its people, then there is no limit to what this nation can achieve. Swaziland really has enormous potential in its people, but that potential is not being recognised or nurtured.