Swaziland Coalition of Concerned Civic Organisations Analysis

of PMs Report to Parliament on the Implementation of the

Directive Principles of State Policy.

The Coalition would like to welcome the Prime Minister’s fulfilment of

his constitutional duty to report to parliament on the implementation of
the Directive Principles of State Policy. The adherence to both the
letter and the spirit of the constitution is an important step towards
entrenching a recognisably democratic culture in Swaziland. The fact
that the Directive Principles are not actionable in court means that the
only oversight for them is parliamentary. Did the Prime Minister
present himself to Parliament for questions? Did Parliament take time
to debate the report and decide whether or not it had enough
information to make an informed decision on the behaviour of the
government? If not then the speech is a window dressing for a system
acting without accountability.

There are no reports in the Media of anything other than acceptance of

the report. This is in direct contrast to some of the robust work that
the Parliamentary Affairs Committee has undertaken in the last year to
call Ministers and Civil Servants to account for their underperformance.
We call on the Parliamentarians to demand time for a debate on the
content of the report.

The problem that the Coalition has with the report is the same that it
had in March with the PMs Plan – it is too vague, too imprecise and
without detail (except for the position of the Judiciary in s 6.5), we
would have preferred to see that level of detail in all the other sections
so that a debate on the government’s performance could be based on
data, not bald statement or supposition.

The Coalition is glad that the report follows the structure of Chapter
Five and that makes it easier to hold the government to account to the
constitutional requirements. However, since the government also has
a plan that has a completely different structure as laid out in the Prime
Minister’s March 2009 document we now have two sets of guiding
principles for ministers and civil servants to follow – The Constitution
and the PMs Plan. Since one of them is tied to the long term career
prospects of the civil servants we can see that the Constitutional
requirements are likely to come second to the Prime Ministers – not a
situation that we would feel comfortable with.

Coming to the details, as we said in the introduction – there aren’t any.

The Statement gives no facts that are checkable, it sets no baseline
against which improvement can be measured and it sets no goals
against which efforts can be assessed. It is a piece of sophistry.
However, even the vagueness is not vague enough to escape at least
some level of detailed scrutiny.

Law Enforcement
The Government continues to hold on to the myth that there is a
terrorist threat in Swaziland. We would like to remind them that
terrorism is of a scale and degree far beyond the low levels of
politically based violence that Swaziland has encountered in the last
few years. His Majesty, King Mswati III wrote in an international article
this week that Swaziland is a peaceful and happy country. He actually
says ‘As a peace loving nation, the Kingdom of Swaziland strongly
believes in promoting dialogue to address national issues and
challenges. It is for that reason that our country is known all over the
world to be the oasis of peace.’ His Prime Minister singles out
Terrorism as a ‘continuous threat’ All of the actions under the
Suppression of Terrorism Act are against Swazis not foreigners – can
both be true? Or is the reality that the Suppression of Terrorism Act is
merely a vehicle for silencing legitimate dissent?

The PM talks about the training of the Law Enforcement Officials in

respect for Human Rights. The Coalition has been calling for this move
for over six years now. Can the PM show us a charter or a set of
guidelines that they work under, that they can be disciplined under or
that the Commissioner of Police and others are responsible for? If so
we would welcome the opportunity to examine them. The Coalition
commented in the media recently about Commissioner Magagula’s
silence on Human Rights in his first few months in post. Again the PM
and the Commissioner cannot both be right.

Political Objectives
The PM refers to elections under which representatives of the people
are ‘democratically elected to serve in Parliament.’ Can we remind the
PM of the judgement of the African Commission on Human and
People’s Rights in 2003 that specifically found that the Tinkhundla
System violated those standards and of the reports by the
Commonwealth Elections observers in both 2003 and 2008 that found
that the elections were ‘not credible’

We challenge the PM to produce evidence of a sustained civic

education programme by the Election and Boundaries Commission or
any other government body at the time of the report. In fact we also
call upon the PM to ask the Chair of the EBC, Chief Gija, to produce the
report on the elections that were held well over a year ago.

We also challenge the PM to show how SMART partnership meets

internationally recognised standards of social dialogue.
The envisaged role of the Human Rights Commission in the Speech is
extremely narrow. A fully independent HRC will call the government
and its agents to task over Human Rights Failure, it will report to
international bodies about efforts and failures to promote and protect
Human Rights in the Country and it will have the power to investigate,
prosecute and / or adjudicate human rights abuses by the government
and traditional authorities.

Economic Objectives
The Coalition welcomes the promotion of economic diversity and the
empowerment of the private and informal sector as engines of
sustainable growth. It notes the increasing concern of the IMF and
others about the increasing burden of the direct public sector wage bill
and sees no commitment to rationalise it or make it more economically
efficient, productive or effective.

The Coalition links the decline in Foreign Direct Investment not only
with the relative ease of doing and starting up business in South Africa
but also the relatively lower levels of corruption there. When the
government places rule of law under threat in one area such as the
heedlessness towards the constitution, and the lack of legal personality
for Tibiyo. It spreads the threat to all other areas that require legal
certainty including the confidence of investors that their investments
are well protected by the courts. It will also be further dented by
reports of government interference in the internal management
decisions of major private and para-statal businesses such as MTN and
SPTC.

Swaziland cannot rely on self sustainability as a model for growth in

either agriculture or energy. It must learn from the mistakes of other
nations that have tried to insulate themselves from international
pressure such as Cambodia, Albania, Romania and North Korea.
Growth depends on international integration and co-operation not
isolation. Our coal supplies are not suitable for energy production, the
cost will be prohibitive. We must follow the rest of SACU and integrate
our economy with the others not isolate it.

To develop our economy we need to find areas of special expertise

that build on our strengths of an English speaking nation, that is very
friendly and has low labour costs at present. Tourism, International
Customer Support, Financial Services etc would move the country into
a westernised service based economy rather than competing with the
Far East on lower production costs.

The Prime Minister makes many promises in the report that he has not
costed and are unlikely to be able to be fulfilled unless the economy is
expanding rapidly. It is impossible to invest in all areas adequately so
either we invest in infrastructure, agriculture (3.10) or health or
education. (4.1)

The PM notes that just over half of the people who should be receiving
Anti Retroviral Treatment are actually doing so. He does not say
whether he thinks this is a good figure or a bad figure, what figure he
finds acceptable and what target he sets the Ministry of Health and
Social Welfare. The real world implications of this failure is to condemn
thousands of people to a certain early death.

Many others have commented on the failure of the government to

adhere to the letter and the spirit of the constitution and the recent
court judgements regarding the government’s failure to plan for and
provide comprehensive free education. We add our voice to theirs .

Foreign Policy Objectives

When will the government set aside parliamentary time to domesticate

the treaties that it has signed and even ratified? Swaziland cannot
continue this hypocrisy of making promises to international partners
and organisations and not fulfilling them.

Independence of the Judiciary

Will the independence of the Judiciary extend to all judges being on full
tenure with immediate effect?

Will the independence of the Judiciary extend to the appointment,

promotion, and removal for Support Staff

Will the Independence of the Judiciary extend to the appointment and

processes of the Judicial Services Commission?

Will his Majesty withdraw his comments about the behaviours of

people that are found not to be guilty?

Duties of the Citizen

The Coalition would object in the strongest of terms about the content
form and effectiveness of the Civic Education that was provided in the
Constitution Making Process (Itself over five years ago) and has
already commented on the EBC’s lack of a Civic Education Programme.
The Coalition welcomes the recognition of our direct and indirect
members WLSA and SWAGGAA but would also remind the government
that Civil Society is a broad and diverse body of opinion that always
seeks to help the government through the process of positive and
constructive debate.

Conclusion
In conclusion, we again welcome the PM’s commitment to upholding,
at least this part of the constitution. We ask him for more details on
what his government is doing and for Parliamentary time to debate the
contents so that they may be examined robustly. We are asking the
questions that a parliament that was founded on sound democratic
principles and truly represented the people should be asking. We do
not have the democratic spaces to hold the government to account
and so ask both the Parliament and Media to probe the PMs statement
with a little more depth and rigour.