OPEN LETTER TO HIS MAJESTY ON THE 55 MILESTON OF THE COUNTRY
Growing up in the Kingdom of Swaziland, one is taught respect, humility, and to live with the next person in harmony. You grow up seeing tradition and culture living in harmony with civilization and that embodies a state of utopia.
But that is all just a fairy tale, and the reality is that we are stuck with a system of governance that only works for one set of people. People who blatantly do not care about the normal citizens on the street, the Make on streets of Manzini selling home grown produce to make ends meet in order to feed her kids at least two meals a day; the lady who works in one of the deplorable sweatshops in Matsapha who gets wages below the standard of living and has to resort to illegal and unethical means to feed and cloth her children; and the nurse in Hlathikhulu who is out there trying to save lives without the necessary medical equipment and medicine. This is the reality that one sees when they return home to Swaziland.
You see this system of governance thinks that we as Swazis are merely loitering around the Mbabane – Manzini corridor, yet there are Swazis who graduate from Witwatersrand, University of Cape Town, University of Pretoria, Rhodes, Harvard, Yale, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Stanford, Oxford, University of London, Nottingham, Kent, University of Hong Kong, to name a few.
These Swazis and the rest from other Universities across the world are educated and have lived in nations where the system of governance, although not perfect, cares about its citizenry and pulls all stops to ensure that each person gets the most basic of services and needs. They are essentially enlightened.
What makes matters worse is that the 1990s generation who grew up in Swaziland, and grew up loving their King, would now unanimously say somethingdifferentabout the country's authorities. As we have been immersed into the global world, you start realizing that there are so many elder Swazis who have held high level positions in neighbouring South Africa, and could have done a lot for Swaziland, had the system of governance succeeded in doing the right thing.
A Swazi was at the helm of MTN Group; another Swazi currently sits in numerous JSE Listed company boards; another founded an Asset Management firm in Cape Town; and many others who run the Board rooms and Executive suites from Sandton down to Cape Town. All they do is come home for Christmas and Easter Weekend just to see their relatives.
Well, that is what the current generation has also resorted to doing. There are now many young Swazi men and women working globally based on their qualifications alone: Chartered Accountants have completed their articles in Mbabane and flocked to Ireland and United Kingdom; Actuarial Scientists in United Arab Emirates or Johannesburg; Engineers (and mind you even petroleum engineers) in Canada, Middle East and East Africa; PHD holders working on projects related to medical research, AI and biotechnology; consultants, finance experts, and investment banking specialists in Wall Street and the rest of the United States of America and beyond.
Many others are teaching English in Asia with Commerce Degrees and health care workers continue to flock to the EU, UK and Canada. The brain drain that continues to happen in Swaziland is all based on the fact that the system of governance does not work for the people. There is a high tax rate yet there are no basic services like healthcare, education, scholarships and effective infrastructure except for that located close to the royal residences.
There is no transparency in the justice system to the extent that judgments are no longer published, perhaps due to the allegations that some of them are now written at a certain law firm in Mbabane. Some Acts of Parliament get promulgated without the public having been called to review and comment. There are no new jobs being created for graduates nor are the minimum wages in accordance with the cost of living.
The system of governance is very much in shambles. In hindsight, this current election should show His Majesty that he has a problem on his hands, because it has been reported that only 200 or so people registered to vote in the country's embassies abroad. That number is mainly made up of Diplomatic staff and their families and students in Taiwan. The thousands of other Swazis in the global community did not register nor vote in this current election season and that should worry His Majesty. In fact, the skills that have left the country and that are still going to leave should make you lose your sleep.
The saddest reality is that you have people around you whom you think have your best interests at heart, yet they are all merely just cashing a cheque, and others are literally stealing the nation from you and you do not even realize. I hope though, that you do realize the extent to which the country left to us by King Sobhuza II has been systematically destroyed, and I pray that somehow the same angel that made you donate E90 million of our hard-earned taxes back in 2019 at the Global Fund touches you on the 6th of September 2023.
Because right now, Swaziland is a joke. Ministers are now opening spaza shops and beauty parlours, in the name of Foreign Direct Investments. Swaziland has not seen Foreign Direct Investments in years, and this is sadly going to continue. Honestly, that angel needs to reach out to you tonight Wena WaPhakathi. Yours Regrettably, A resigned Umbutfo of Inkhanyeti NB: the name of the author has been removed at his request.