As a country with just a population of 1.2million, we must ask ourselves why do we have such a large number of poor citizens some who are qualified, capable of working and feeding themselves and their families but, cannot do so because of the social, political and economic situation in this country.
Personally, I know how poverty looks like and I remember my grandmother mixing and fermenting an old porridge to produce “Singwangwa”, she mixed the porridge with sugar and water for fermentation.
So when MP Marwick Khumalo moved the Parliament motion seeking to mitigate poverty, it wasn’t a theory for me, we have a serious poverty crisis in this country and we have to collectively work towards eradicating it.
The motion successfully moved by Marwick Khumalo, the long-serving Lobamba Lomdzala Member of Parliament(MP) calling upon the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister(DPM) to distribute free food to poor emaSwati must be applauded but, it is not enough to deal with the poverty challenges we are facing as a country.
Distributing food might help in the short-term while we deal with the genuine causes of poverty and political issues, of course, another measure that should be adopted because hunger is an urgent matter and needs an urgent solution,is food.
But we must not disregard or ignore the causes of poverty in this country, some employed emaSwati are paid as little as one thousand five hundred Rands(R1,500.00) per month and this is supported by Government Gazettes.
This means Government has signed policies and Gazettes supporting or manufacturing poverty while on the other hand,claiming to be fighting poverty,these are the issues that must be interrogated by Parliament.
It does not make sense to introduce Gazettes that empowers companies to underpay workers and then appear to be a Messiah in the fight against poverty by distributing food, the question is; why are we having such a large number of emaSwati living in abject poverty when we have minerals and other resources in this country?.
Actually, we need to contextualize the poverty crisis, it’s not only unemployed individuals who are living in poverty, we have civil servants and other workers who can’t afford to buy decent food for themselves, provide quality education for their children and feed their parents, the source of all these poverty challenges,is the Government and companies who refuse to pay decent salaries.
We recently saw Sipho Tsabedze, the Principal Secretary in the Ministry of Public Service signing a mere 4% Cost of Living Adjustment(COLA) for civil servants, this is a Government that claims to be fighting poverty while on the other hand, pushing State workers deeper into poverty.
Civil servants are a huge working class,frustrating them with low salaries means, you are not only destroying those who depend on them for survival but, businesses will also suffer as the buying power will decline.
I once held a meeting with Deputy Prime Minister(DPM) Thulisile Dladla at Sibane Hotel, at the time she was the Chairperson of the Public Accounts Accounts(PAC), I had gone there in my line of duty as a journalist.
While we were chatting about the economy, she made a very important observation and this is what she said;
“Ye-Zweli lesimo sibi mbamba bantfu bahluphekile bete imali, benglapha eGables ngakhandza timoto timbalwa kani inyanga iphelile. Kute bantfu latitolo, ayitekwa yema-restaurants”.
Labour Minister Phila Buthelezi must account to Parliament why some companies are allowed to pay emaSwati R1,500.00, we need a basic Minimum Wage that will enhance the fight against poverty, no Liswati should earn less than four thousand Rands(R4000.00) and that Minimum Wage must be reviewed based on inflation and the escalating costs of living.
But we thank MP Marwick Khumalo for raising this issue, at least now we are talking about issues of poverty in Parliament and we must urgently find solutions.
The solution to the poverty situation in my view, is democracy or good governance, fight against corruption, support of the health and education sectors including institutions of higher learning, creation of jobs with decent salaries, support of the Small and Medium Enterprises(SMEs) and the payment of not less than two thousand Rands(R2000.00) monthly elderly grants among others.
Paying the elderly R2000.00 per-month does not amount to wasting State funds, those senior citizens will then buy groceries,medication in Pharmacies and use public transport to travel, the money will circulate back into the economy.
Furthermore, we need to reduce royal expenditure because clearly, we cannot afford to have King Mswati living a lavish lifestyle in a sea of poverty and with public funds.
I know MPs might be afraid to question Mswati but at least,I will do so in this publication, we can’t have one rich Liswati while others are poor,the King must present to us what magic he uses to generate money deep in the sea of poverty.
It’s high time the King realizes that, poverty is now a national crisis and stop stealing public funds, one of the major causes of poverty in this country is the outbreak of thieves and King Mswati is one of those thieves.
As a country let us have humanity(Buntfu),we cannot enjoy life while a majority of the citizens are poor, let us find ways to improve the lives of the poor.
We are inter-related in country, why are we watching our relatives suffer and even invite investors to exploit them with low salaries, why are we so heartless towards our fellow emaSwati?.
The poverty issue raised by the Lobamba Lomdzala MP is of viral public interest and of course, we thank the DPM Thulisile Dladla and her donor for building the houses for the poor, at least we are seeing some action.
Personally,I hope one day the country will have a Poverty Eradication Indaba, some of us and many other emaSwati who grew-up in squalor and managed to defeat poverty, have ideas on what needs to be done to fight this crisis but,that is if there’s a political will.
MP Marwick Khumalo.