Sccco Repsonse To Swaziland Pm Statement On State Policy December 2009

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.