By EPN Reporter
MBABANE – Government is now working on eradicating problems facing the country, which hinder the economy of the country from growing.
Emaswati can expect that such problems will be dealt with in a space of six to 12 months from now. Most of such problems are the ones that were raised during the Sibaya, which was held in October last year. Government is working on these problems during the on-going Cabinet Work Retreat held at Royal Villas in Ezulwini.
The tackling of the problems is in line with a directive issued by His Majesty King Mswati III, who stated that the time had come for the country to eradicate the problems once and for all. The King said this on Saturday at Ngabezweni Royal Residence when dispersing Emabutfo, marking the end of the Incwala ceremony.
Government Spokesperson Alpheous Nxumalo stated that the Cabinet Work Retreat was all about implementing the King’s directive. He said Prime Minister Russell Mmiso Dlamini made it clear to all the government ministries that there was no time for story-telling, but all he needed were solutions to deal with the problems affecting the country.
Nxumalo said the ministries were given a challenge to go and put their heads together and find ways of coming up with the solutions. Nxumalo stated that he was amazed at the response by the ministers and others who attended the retreat. This gave him hope that very soon, improvements would be seen in terms of implementing the directive of the King.
The Government mouthpiece said he looked forward to the press conference where the prime minister would unpack what was discussed during the retreat. The spokesperson pointed out that Cabinet was doing what was aligned with the directive of the King and the Cabinet did not want to rest on the problems, but wanted solutions to the problems faced by the country.
He said the solutions to the problems were widespread and they focused on the shortage of drugs in the country’s health facilities, infrastructure development and management, and the implementation of capital projects. Nxumalo said in the past, some capital projects had been implemented, but could not be successful because there were no means of financing those capital projects.
Nxumalo stated that ministries were also directed to ensure that all capital projects that were implemented were the ones that were going to be finance until they were completed. This, according to Nxumalo, would avoid a situation where government would have to pay twice for the same project, just because the project took a long time to be finished.
The spokesperson said he was happy because sound strategies were being presented during the retreat, which gave hope that indeed, the problem would be dealt with within a space of six to 12 months from now. He was optimistic that such a time frame was possible because most of the problems raised during Sibaya did not require a lot of financial injection and they did not require much time to be dealt with.
