It is not an exaggeration by any stretch of the imagination to say that the country has scored a spectacular own goal in the case of the five inmates deported by the United States.
No, not that one is going against the visit of such important guests of His Majesty’s Correctional Services, but the manner in which such high-profile visitors almost sneaked into the Sikhuphe Airport in the crack of the morning on Wednesday, unannounced and without anyone ready to provide answers as to the visit.
That is hardly the way to make an entry into a peaceful and orderly country such as this beautiful kingdom, so such an arrival was always going to get the blood pressures of everyone minding their business very high.
It is not every day that we wake up to a big aircraft landing in our shores, carrying the world’s most dangerous criminals, who have been dubbed to be unwanted in their countries – but nevertheless, being dropped off in our country like we drop off our children for pre-school.
No! Not these five inmates being deported out of the United States to become part of our society – even if at the Matsapha Maximum Prison. These are not your normal five criminals. These are, so we are told, hardened murderous and dangerous inmates.
Yet, they have been dropped off for our care and attention. They are now in the vicinity of our warders, whose level of security is often porous with daring inmates walking out in broad daylight.
criminals
This beautiful kingdom has, in its books, some tough criminals at the Matsapha Maximum Prison, but by the books of these guys, they are just small fries. They are softies and I am certain that some of them are going to be putting in good behaviour just so they can get out of that place on good behaviour!
It is one thing that we do not even know where they are kept. How are they kept? Is our security up to the standard, or are they going to simply walk out of that place while our warders snore away?
These are the questions keeping Emaswati awake – suddenly worrying if they have locked their doors hard enough to detect if they are being pushed or forced open by some unwanted visitors.
But, the bigger thing is what can these guys do in that small prison? Are they going to fit in? All of us are asking ourselves if we are safe in this country, and more importantly, what are these people doing here – and for what good?
Well, sadly, these questions we have do not have answers. Suddenly this government cannot explain itself to its people and for a second on Wednesday it looked like no one even knew these guys were here in the first place. Which of course, is a shame. And an embarrassment if not just a plain scandal.
It is a serious indictment on our Cabinet that once more, they have let the narrative at the hands of the social media users, when it would have been expected that we have learnt from lessons of the past.
It is shocking that no one at Hospital Hill thought beforehand that such an agreement between the two countries will have to be made known to the public – in advance! That they thought this would be a state secret, or that the public did not deserve to know such an arrangement.
Yet, the country woke up to a nightmare on Wednesday, discovering that the United States had dumped five people it is very pleased to see the back of – dropping them in a country that is grappling with gangs and gang violence in correctional facilities in addition to an increase in crime, especially violent murders and kidnappings.
It is clear also we do not have the most sophisticated equipment to the level of these people and where they had been kept.
In fact, we do not also know if these are the lot we will have to deal with, or Donald Trump has an ace up his sleeve to drop off more of these guys and we will soon be a dumpsite for hardened thugs.
Which is to say, this whole thing has been bungled spectacularly and has dragged the good name of this country through the mud – never mind that of His Majesty the King, unnecessarily. But, Cabinet failed to think proactively, both before and at the height of this controversy when it was clear the issue was getting out of control, instead of leaving us to scratch our heads for answers we still have not been given to this date and now we are getting ulcers stressing if we are likely to bump into one of these people already and who knows what else happening!
The point is that this was such an easy thing to handle after all, we are working hard to please Uncle Don and especially because we need all the friends we can make these days. Besides the misinformation about this being for financial gain, the whole arrangement could have been turned into good and positive public relations stunt for the country. We could have demonstrated that we are a country in Uncle Don’s good books while our neighbours look on enviously.
We could have been using this to brag and show off that even our tariffs are the lowest in the continent (and what for, other than that we are good buddies?) and we could have used this to turn this into a tourism boom, because this has put the country on the world map, no doubt.
But, in the manner that this has been mishandled, we are suddenly back to the negative narrative about Eswatini, and all the things we have worked hard to put into the back banner. This can not be right bekunene.
Once more, Eswatini has managed to score spectacular political own goal, for which heads should roll. Someone needs to answer for the mess – especially where everyone disappeared to on Wednesday when the country was burning. In the mantra of ‘Nkwe!’, government dropped the ball and some people should hang their heads in shame.
PM’s grand plan on drugs crisis
Two years into office, the prime minister has finally decided to grab the bull by its horn, in the latest attempt to solve the drugs shortage crisis.
The PM presented his grand plan to Parliament recently, after being given an ultimatum of course (probably the fourth one of the current term by MPs), I have lost count) and parliament has already risen in fury to it.
It is not surprising, of course, that MPs would oppose the PM’s intervention, or is it the mere mention of the National Disaster Management Agency (NDMA) and the National Emergency Response Council on HIV and AIDS (NERCHA) that has them frothing in the mouth?
The PM’s plan is to take procurement to a select procurement and technical committee, to handle all the procurement of the drugs – given, he posits the experience by both entities to handle drugs and emergency crises in this country. He is not wrong, of course. The PM is spot-on in his analysis of what the real problem is behind the drugs shortage, and what needs to happen.
It is also, what we have been saying for all these years. In case you have not been following, the drugs and medicines shortage in hospitals and clinics is a man-made crisis.
It was engineered when we pulled down the procurement department by suspending those who had all along been handling the procurement and supply of drugs, in addition to the initial lack of funds.
Therefore, all we have been doing in the past three or so years have been no different to throwing money down the drain, by handing people tenders directly to order and procure. This has been the recipe for complete and utter disaster.
I have only been disappointed it has taken the PM this long to get involved, but I will fault him for other things – not this time, especially because his intervention demonstrates an understanding of where the problem lies and not these skelems who have only been interested in enabling the crisis.
He is right that this is a procurement and supply issue.
He is right that there needs to be experts handling procurement for government, not this scandalous decision of people going around looking for suppliers and benchmarking exercises that have only served to offer people gravy trips at our expense.
He is right that there is no need for the ministry to be going to suppliers directly to enter into agreements.
He is right that the ministry does not need to be looking at people in the face and handing tenders directly to them to import drugs – even dubious companies that have no experience or track record at doing so.
The PM is spot-on in his attempt to arrest this crisis. It is not about throwing money around and creating new state-owned entities to do exactly the same thing that has been done successfully at the ministry of health. There is also absolutely no reason why the country has to fund a private owned entity as a solution.
What it comes down to is procurement. The ministry’s procurement division was dismantled when two of the most experienced officials were suspended and a junior inexperienced person (we will come back to this one in future) was given the responsibility. Ever since then, tenders have been thrown about as Manna from heaven. However, I am not convinced, however, that we needed to reinvent the wheel in solving this crisis and handing this responsibility to a technical committee only serves to prolong the crisis.
For me, the PM should have by now held a brief with the two suspended officials to get to the crux of this crisis, for firsthand information.
While these two are suspended, perhaps the solution would have been to rope in procurement specialists from Eswatini Public Procurement Regulatory Agency (ESPPRA) or given the procurement wing to the agency to handle altogether.
At least though, the PM has provided the right path to solving this crisis. Now, he will need to be so bold as to accept that this thing has always been about corruption.
Now, he must act to ensure people are held responsible and arrests should be made.
