RSA PARLIAMENT ENQUIRY ON GENERAL MKHWANAZI: WE SWAZIS CAN ONLY WISH
The ongoing hearings in the South African Parliament, where ministers, police chiefs, and bureaucrats are being grilled live on television, are a painful reminder of what we lack in eSwatini.
For us Swazis, such a scene feels almost impossible because never in our recent history have those in power been truly held to account. At least not in recent memory.
For anyone born post 1973 let’s do this experiment . Just close your eyes and imagine this: Parliament launching a televised inquiry into the collapse of our health system and the chronic shortage of essential drugs and ministers trembling under tough questioning as the nation is taken into confidence who exactly is responsible for the drug shortage and by extension health collapse?
Picture MPs demanding answers on why civil servants’ salary adjustments were for years frozen or why government hiring has been halted while royal spending keeps ballooning.
Imagine the Defence Ministry being forced to open its books and explain where millions of emalangeni in army funds go especially in a country that fights no wars, participates in no peacekeeping missions, and faces no external threats.
Imagine the Minister of Finance standing before the nation, line by line, explaining why so much of our national budget is swallowed by the royal family while hospitals crumble, schools decay, and poverty deepens. Imagine them telling us how has the country benefitted from the billion of SACU revenues?
Or perhaps our foreign affairs Minister explaining what economic, strategic and political sense does it make to keep alliance with Taiwan instead of China.
Think of the many princes and princesses being summoned to explain their extravagant travels and luxury lifestyles, their designer wardrobes, the timepieces worth a worker’s lifetime salary, the luxury cars that crowd royal compounds.
Imagine the king’s wives and children publicly accounting for their expensive tastes and explaining why they live in opulence while the people they rule over drown in hardship.
Imagine Shakantu standing before a parliamentary committee answering why Swazis never received the shares they were promised? It would be a good day hearing why electricity and water prices remain sky-high in one of the poorest countries in the region.
Imagine army generals explaining why recruitment into the military is riddled with nepotism, favouring royal relatives and the sons of chiefs while ordinary citizens are humiliated by running their lives out just for a job.
Remember the last time we heard a genuine investigation in Eswatini — the Tibiyo inquiry that introduced us to the unforgettable phrase “imali idliwe ngemagundvwane” (the money was eaten by rats). Since then, accountability has died a quiet death.
Imagine reopening that spirit of scrutiny and questioning how our Constitution was altered at the last minute by those close to the king, stripping away the democratic safeguards and reforms that Prince David Dlamini and his team had fought to include.
But instead, what we have today is a Parliament that exists only to praise power. Our parliament is a hollow institution filled with sycophants competing to be noticed, tripping over each other to be the loudest in saying “Bayethe!” rather than the boldest in saying “Enough!”
Our MPs have become royal shoe-shiners, polishing the boots of power while the country sinks deeper into crisis. They have forgotten that they were elected (or selected) to serve the people, not to serve as the monarch’s cheering squad.
Imagine, for once, a Parliament that truly represents the people, one that demands accountability, transparency, and justice. Imagine a government that fears its citizens, not the other way around.
Until that day comes, Eswatini will remain trapped as a nation without accountability, ruled by privilege, sustained by fear, and silenced by loyalty to a crown that has forgotten its duty to its people. We can only look at South African parliament and wish.