Mfomfo on Monday 19 July 2010
If it is making a lot of sense, Swazis will not implement it.
On Tuesday 20 July 2010, some selected Swazis will be coming together to discuss certain issues that are challenging the survival of this nation. I do not know how they have been chosen to be participants in this national dialogue. I have also been invited to be a participant in this national dialogue and I do not have a clue why I have been chosen. But I know that in our country there are so many things that get done without anyone getting worried about the public lacking information about any initiative being undertaken for the public good.
The people of Swaziland are coming together to talk about food security. This has become a national problem but nobody has a clue on what is to be done. The Swazis are to help government come up with a solution to this problem. Whose problem is it that this country cannot produce enough to feed the people staying in this country? If it is a problem faced by government alone then it will not bother the people of Swaziland whether there is a solution to this problem or not.
Last Friday I met a chicken farmer who told me of his initiative to bring some common business sense to some farmers around the Malkerns area of Swaziland. These farmers grow Sugar cane for a mill situated over 100Km away from their farms. The chicken farmer imports a lot of maize from the Republic of South Africa. He is a commercial chicken farmer. He had done his calculation very well using experts in the field of maize industry as well as in the Sugar cane industry. He called the farmers to a meeting and asked them how much money they were making, in terms of profit, from the sugar cane. It is not that he did not have an idea. Some of the farmers who were honest admitted that they were not making any money especially those that had joined the industry because they were still indebted to the financiers. The chicken farmer was shocked to discover that the farmers were not prepared to abandon sugar cane farming for maize farming even though he had made a proposal and was prepared to enter into a legally binding contract with the farmers for some years. He even showed them the projected profit they would be making per hectare of maize compared to the hectare of Sugar cane. This chicken farmer was prepared to do the ploughing, planting, buying the inputs as well as doing the harvesting and buying the maize at the price that is used in Swaziland. He would then take away the costs of doing these from the sale of maize and the farmers would still be left with a healthy profit from which he would take care of the financiers for the sugar cane.
The farmers refused to accept this offer. He even went to the extent of calling the financiers of the sugar cane growing farmers with a view to get them to agree to his proposal so that they could push the farmers to agree to his proposal. The financiers could not agree to his proposal although they could see that there was a lot of business sense to what he was proposing. The question that comes to my mind is what is wrong with the Swazi people? If we want to bring about some changes in this country in the way the Swazi people think and do things then we need to get a mirror for every Swazi individual and ask him/her to look at the fellow in the mirror and change certain things that he/she is not happy with before we count on ourselves to do something for the good of this country as well as for our children.
Lastly he said to me if a proposal to a national problem is proposed to the Swazi people, they will look at it and if it is making a lot of sense then the chances of that solution being implemented are close to zero. Why should we condemn ourselves to perpetual difficulties when we can rise to any occasion and do the right thing for the good of this country and our children?
Last week the SACU Heads of States met for some serious business following the departure from a known practice of standing together whenever matters of common interest arose in the region. This departure from the known practice came about because of Botswana, Lesotho and Swaziland signing an EPA’s agreement with the European Union. This did not go down well with RSA because she felt that the region would be flooded with cheap goods from the EU thus threatening the stability/survival of the region which is heavily dependent on South Africa for survival. The RSA is also not happy that it does not have any control on the use of the money from the SACU pool once it is allocated to these governments yet this money is coming from the South African consumer/tax payer. The heads of states have agreed to have these differences ironed out with a view to make the SACU member states’ dealings harmonized as well as opening its doors to new members so that it may be stronger than it is. What does this mean my friend? It is time you think big?
