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UNESWA CANNOT GO ON LIKE THIS

By Mbongeni Mbingo | 2024-11-09

As you read this, the University of Eswatini is in a mess – a stinking one, for that matter.
The institution that has produced some of the finest leaders of this country, and has been the mainstay of our economic growth for decades, apart from being a beacon of excellence in the region and beyond, is at the cusp of complete and utter collapse.

Take for instance, when Patrice Motsepe donated to the university a couple of years ago. He did so because the institution shaped him to be where he is today. He donated a clean E10 million and we all thanked him very kindly – God bless that man’s soul and his billions.

He did so out of his kind heart, perhaps and more importantly, after being confronted with the reality that the university was no longer what it was then.

Something, we can all agree, went wrong at Kwaluseni and it has been on a downward trail ever since. Now it is staring direct into the dungeon and has gone straight to the dogs, except the dogs have seen enough and are turning away.

That is the stark reality of the institution we should be holding in high esteem and pride.
It can’t pay its staff their salaries and when it has to, it has to go on a very long prayer that the money comes together.

It can’t pay its creditors and when it has done, it has to say another long prayer that it has. Its sugar daddy, the government, has been giving it just enough to see through the month, and then it has to beg and beg and beg.

This is not the life of a side-chic; it is the life of an institution responsible for producing the finest sharpest minds to go into the job market and make a difference.

The university of this country lives literally from hand to mouth and has been running up the bill so high that it can’t be trusted to keep the lights on any longer – if not the taps running, because Jabulile Mashwama has switched off those taps and now they are fetching water from Mtilane River.

It is simply a sorry sight, and that is why the Minister of Education Owen Nxumalo decided that he could do well to appoint a task team to look into the obvious and tell him the obvious.

But, for him to take the obvious and make it meaningful to his Cabinet colleagues, he needed the finest brains in the land – ironically, whose brains were sharpened at the institution back when the paint was still fresh and smelling good - to do this.

So, he sent for Muzi Siyaya and a host of good luminaries to chew on the biscuits and tea long enough to decide that they can put together something on a sheet of paper to tell the minister that the inevitable will happen.

In truth, the task team got off to a flier. They drank good coffee and saw the path – to clean the rot at UNESWA, they need to the public to get it from the source – fresh! Not for anyone else to regurgitate what is already said and done.

They thought that they could do their own state capture sittings and have everyone confess their sins right in front of a wide-eyed public.
This seemed to do the trick, and the chairman of Council spilled the beans, except, of course there was a problem.

Disappointing
Either the coffee was taken away and they were given Ricoffee or the tea and biscuits people came for their money, it is not clear, except that the next sitting was held in camera – and the media was chased away!

This is a shame, and utterly disappointing. It is also the real reason why we can’t solve anything in this country – that we always want to sweep things into the reports that are stacked somewhere in the cabinets collecting dust that are never implemented, instead of tackling the issues head-on.

We are good at finding the excuses not to do anything – or to do nothing at all.
We are good at shifting the blame and protecting the skelems and those who are always in the shadows.

We don’t want the truth in public; we want it in whispers and behind closed doors so that we can continue to find the scapegoats and shift the goalposts.

As it is, no one is certain what is going to come of the task force inquiries except that we trust the committee to take seriously the assignment they have been given.

We don’t know if this exercise will last the mile too, except that we do know this country deserves a good and functioning UNESWA that is able to give its student a calendar it can stick to.

But of course, there is no magic wand in the world that wishes away all our problems. Indeed, thee is only one Elon Musk with enough millions to give away that the people can be deluded enough to think their problems will disappear magically the next day.

The world does not work like that, and so the university can expect that it is still going to be a very long and winding road where lecturers and academics are still going to fight tooth and nail to get their salaries and that their medical aid is paid on time.

If we are serious about the future of this country, though, we need UNESWA to get back to the future and do what it is meant to do – which is, help this country out of its quagmire.

If you think hard enough, you will realise that the dearth of quality leadership begins when leaders aren’t confident enough in their own selves to lead and therefore start fighting imaginary enemies.

And so, I ask, we need to sort out the university. It can’t go on like this where it is reduced to the levels of a college and a poor man’s Ngwane College. We need top brains to run the institution and provide the solutions.

We don’t need to throw money at the institution, but we need individuals who know that they have to fix the problems and not wait for a sugar daddy to pay their way out.

That only prolongs the problem, and that is why even today, the university is closed, and for all it is worth, it can’t even plan for a new academic year – or solve a simple thing as student allowances ahead of time, so that lectures can go ahead.

That is the leadership we have, and that is why the university has blown its own bailout opportunity to find itself right where it was two years ago.

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