Mbabane: It is an open secret that our Cabinet is dominated by staunch Christians and I am clearly aware that even His Majesty King Mswati III is very much aware that Eswatini is being governed by a lot of born-again men and women.
Strikingly, about three of them are worshiping at Jesus Calls Worship Centre. These are Prime Minister Ambrose Mandvulo Dlamini, Minister of Home Affairs Princess Lindiwe, and Minister of Justice Pholile Shakhantu. These three are fellowshipping at one of the country’s powerful churches. Yes! Powerful! Out of the blue, JC Worship Centre has emerged to be the first church in the country to produce a bunch of men and women holding high positions, both politically and administratively.
Even if you have been oblivious of this fact, please can you start today and count how many people who fellowship at the said church, who are either ministers, managing directors and/or Chief Executive officers, Principal Secretaries, Under Secretaries or any high-profile position.
And that paints a clear picture that the men of the cloth from this church are calling the shots and are in control. Obviously, we are governed by a very religious lot who have, for the better part of their term in office showed high level of political naivety! I will deal with their religious lives and backgrounds and how it has shaped the Kingdom’s political landscape on another day
But, for today, I want to show how their religious background had resulted in them to be politically naïve and failed to take critical decisions amid the incessant spread of the COVID-19 pandemic and their actions had got me to be hot under the collar and please forgive me if I would use strong language.
The latest decision taken by government to open up churches and allowed churches to welcome 70 congregants displayed that we are led by people who are politically amateurish and who doesn’t care about poor emaSwati’s lives. Who, in his or her sober senses can allow the opening of churches while Eswatini currently has the second highest infection rate in Southern Africa? According to the World Health Organisation (WHO) the kingdom’s infection rate per million people is the second highest. Its alarming! Again, WHO revealed that we are the only country below 10 percent recovery despite that most of the cases are reportedly mild infections. Again, we have seen the number of confirmed cases skyrocketing while the number of recoveries had remained low. We have just heard about a huge jump of recoveries on Sunday where 25 were recorded to have recovered.
Against this backdrop, we have heard the Minister of Home Affairs announcing opening of churches to welcome 70 congregants to come and worship. Critical questions which the PM and his Cabinet crew should answer are: “What role do churches play the economy? What is the contribution of churches to the country’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP)? Whose life is at stake if churches remain closed? Does Cabinet want to tell the nation that the lives of emaSwati are less important than the lives of the fat cats who call themselves pastors and bishops?”
Believe me you, government’s decision strikes me as a clandestine move to let their so-called spiritual fathers swindle emaSwati in the name of Jesus, while at the same time they contract the deadly coronavirus. We all know that most of the pastors, bishops, reverends had been hit hard by the coronavirus outbreak more so because their source of income had been the tithes and offerings. Puzzlingly, the minister of home affairs is a wife to a pastor who was not spared from the effects of the virus hence it was easy for her to agree to the foolish idea of opening churches while the COVID-19 continue to spread rapidly. However, I cannot level all the blame on Pastor Lindiwe (Home Affairs Minister) alone but to the whole Cabinet for such an illogical decision? Sadly, our Cabinet’s mind is shrouded with silly things like the opening of churches, something that doesn’t boost the economy in anyway instead of making efforts to boost the supply of personal protective clothing (PPE) which exposes our health personnel to infection. Prime Minister Ambrose Mandvulo Dlamini and his crew will shoulder the blame for the increased numbers of emaSwati who are yet to die of the virus because instead of coming with preventative ways, they are hatching a plan of how the virus should spread. Ladies and gentlemen, your religious lives and your prayers will do little to save us from this pandemic. Mr Prime Minister sir and your charges, smell the coffee. You should be working towards enrolling mass testing to fast-track the treatment of the people and tracing. You should not be encouraging mass gatherings for your selfish religious reasons but you should make sure that people move from one area to another safely. The economy should continue to breathe but let’s think twice about this nonsensical mass gatherings because the disease in uncountably spreading each and every day.
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