Parliamentarians have been in office for just about two years now.
The honeymoon period has included them being pampered with new cars, new shinny suits and most of all, lots of benchmarking trips across the continent which are digging deeper into the taxpayer’s pockets and generally very good perks. Yet, in the two years, parliament has presided over the drugs and medicines shortage in health in which the country has been throwing money into a bottomless pit for three full years.
What then must give for the country to finally be able to walk into a hospital and get medication, the rightful prescription whose drugs will be available for all? What then must give for parliament to be able to provide the rightful guidance and solution to government over how to solve this crisis?
As it stands, it does not inspire any confidence that the status quo will change or that the politicians will be able to provide any solution. What worries more is that when many of them open their mouths to speak you just shudder – they are clueless, if not deliberately so and they are spewing half-truths and regurgitated narratives that have got us into this mess.
This past week was once more a painful reminder that our Parliament is only good for grandstanding and does not have what it takes to provide solutions for this country. I don’t know but it is possible that this is becoming a really dreadful parliament, lacking in direction and failing the people who put their trust in them to lead from the front.
Instead, we are experiencing a parliament that even where it is clear they are united in understanding there is a crisis, they do not have what it takes to come together to agree on the problem that caused the crisis in the first place. Above all, they are stuck in pettiness and name calling, which has clouded them from the first day they put on the parliament lihiya to take their oath.
The problem begins when parliament cannot rise above the childish politics and politics of the stomach, ignoring information that has been staring at them since they came into office, purely because their agenda is to target people.
They cannot get us out of this situation if they are going to insist on petty gossip and malicious rumour, instead of getting to the crux of the issue, which is basically – as a I have pointed out in the recent weeks I have been writing on this topic – the crisis was man-made; man made when the procurement system was dismantled and the suppliers are now being handpicked!
Procurement is the gut of the system, yet the ministry’s procurement structure was pulled into shreds for almost two years. Now, everyone who is anyone is going around looking for suppliers, with trips to manufactures in South Africa and beyond – for what! There is nothing we are going to gain if we ignore the issue and start personalising the problem. There is no solution to come out of the many motions that are being moved in parliament except to distract us from the bigger picture.
What’s worse is targeting those who can actually see the problem for what it is.
Let me reiterate for the umpteenth time too, that I was almost shocked (except I shouldn’t be any more) that the whole week the debate into this matter focused not on the Funduzi Forensic Services Report but now on the solution the prime minister is providing – as a way out.
I am saying almost shocked because we have known for a long time that there is political will to debate that flimsy sorry excuse of a forensic audit report, except that it remains a justification for a heavy expenditure. Parliament has been in possession of that report for almost the period they have been in office and for a second the Public Accounts Committee pretended that it was sitting on a smoking gun – and this was the solution to the crisis.
Everyone went and performed acrobatics that the report provided the answers and would be tabled and debated. Yet, here we are. No debate on Funduzi’s incredible report. No debate on their botched findings. Even after Funduzi itself has gone around spreading malicious rumour about us, and scapegoating people for their sham, there has been nothing to suggest there is a hurry to get to either the bottom of what a sham this report is or the debate into its findings.
To demonstrate the sheer size of this problem, it was said that the report came into forms too; one an abridged version for the public and a full-blown one (if that can ever be) for a select few. With the second one, everyone in possession of it was so excitable they couldn’t stop talking about the contents. It boggles the mind how such an expensive exercise for which we have paid millions of our hard-earned money has been left untouched, for so long while the crisis deepens.
Yet, on the other hand, when the prime minister tries to address the very issue of the procurement crisis, members of Parliament jump around like excited children on Christmas day and accuse him of looking to benefit – when they are the ones who have looked like they are benefitting out of this crisis
Certainly, by refusing or neglecting to debate the Funduzi report – so it can be thrown out and we can speak openly and freely about what is in there – MPs are demonstrating not just a bias, but that their hands are not clean.
Equally, since the very start of this crisis, so many so-called solutions have been branded about – either by Cabinet itself and the ministry of health – Parliament and many others who claim to know the culprit behind this crisis, the one glaring thing has been the collapse of the procurement system at the centre of the drugs shortage.
The nerve centre of supply can’t be messed about and then we expect the system to function fully.
The nerve centre can’t be left to individuals who only possess an associate degree to diagnose either. The nerve centre needs to be rebooted and that is what I thought the prime minister has been spot-on about. Whether he gives it to NERCHA or anyone else, the truth is the wolves in sheepskin know that that is the way out of this crisis. And because we know the truth, we can anticipate this to be objected to, and vehemently by those who stand to milk this system dry until the country has been brought to its knees.
Come to think about it, the only reason we are being side-tracked by motions to give The Luke Commission a budget as a solution; the single-sourced supplier for the same drugs rotting away locally; external trips to countries that supply drugs; short-term tenders to companies to supply drugs – and tenders to some obscure Indian company with dodgy credentials. All of these are signs that we are not addressing the elephant in the room. And that is to say, hate on Swazi Pharm all day long, but the truth is, that’s not where the problem. If it was, I am sure there would have long been a debate in parliament and an arrest.
The reason neither has happened is beacause those pulling the heist know the truth. Which then brings me to the question I have asked myself all week – perhaps more than any other week – is this parliament fit for purpose? Does it have the political gravitas to pull this country out of this mess? Does it have good men and women who care for this country – and can call out those who are derailing this country? Can it be expected to really stand up and call the problem for what it is – or is this as good as it gets? Are we lacking mature, politically-sound politicians who can arrest this slide? Perhaps, the answer to the question of the day lies in wait. Time will tell.
Savannah’s baptism into politics
Shame, you have to feel for Minister Savannah Maziya for what she is enduring in her first political stint.
It hasn’t been a bed of roses, and knowing her, she will be honest enough to admit that things have not worked as perfectly as she demands of herself – and those around her.
In the brief period as a politician, the business mogul has had to contend with a lot at the height of which must be losing Phesheya Dube as her principal secretary. It is an open secret that the two had formed a good partnership and the recent reshuffle must hit hard.
There is also the fraught relationship with the prime minister that she has had to work within, which can’t be easy.
Thrown in the Royal Science and Technology Park which has been bedevilled with resignations after the other – from executives to the board chair. The minister is also dealing with the king’s advisory body Liqoqo following the dismissal or non-renewal of the previous chief executive Vumile Dlamini on allegations of many other things relating to fraud and financial mismanagement.
All of which brings me to say that the minister couldn’t have wished for a more controversial or troubled start to her life in politics. To her credit, the minister is working hard to maintain her street cred; which is that she is a big-name businesswoman who knows how to run the show and knows what it takes to turn things around.
Her appointment of the board chairman of the RSTP this past week is probably a roll of the dice, but relatively not a sign of her burying her head in the sand.
Which is to say, the RSTP has been riddled with a lot of challenges for a very long time and to solve them will take more than the rightful appointment – or a magic wand. There has got to be a systematic, methodical way to arrest the slide and it requires that the minister retreats to the drawing board to analyse what strategy could best work to get this ship back on course.
An indaba into the collapse of the RSTP could be a start; to allow people to come forward with what they have seen that contributed to the RSTP failing to live up to expectations.
It could also help to expose some of the rot that we know has happened, but is also not being addressed, because either it is true that there are strong forces within the RSTP that are the cause or that there has been a systematic failure.
One thing is for certain, plugging the holes with mud won’t stop the house from flooding.
And not even a Jacqueline will be a fix. What the RSTP needs is a true surgical operation – probably not at the Mbabane Government Hospital.
I admire the minister’s tenacity a lot and her passion for the country. What she needs though, is a five-man committee to do her dirty work and submit an actionable report providing a way forward.
Anything else, will drag her good name down the mud, which the guys in the movie Scarface will say… ‘is politics’.
Eswatini Observer Press Reader
