Swazi Observer

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â€˜PAY CUTS WILL ONLY HELP IN SHORT, MEDIUM TERMâ€™

By Sabelo Majola | 2018-11-14

THE country’s economy should be robust to an extent that it is able to create many jobs.

To effectively resuscitate it, the economy’s export strategy should be diversified.

This is according to Economist Sanele Sibiya who is also a lecturer at the University of Eswatini (UNESWA).

Sibiya said as much as pay cuts would help the situation, but that would only be for the short and medium term.

Sibiya said the country faces two major problems, a stagnant economy that has not been growing for the past two decades and a cash flow crisis that is massively contributing to the ailing economy.

“We need to first acknowledge the problems that we are facing as a country and look at how best we can deal with them.

“Pay cuts are obviously the first stop where we need to cut the wage bill and also cut the people’s spending power so that they won’t be spending as much as they would have. However, that will only help the situation in the short, medium term,” he said.

Sibiya said the country has a financial system that does not create jobs because government is the major employer and the country’s working class is dominated by civil servants.

“The private sector is trailing behind in terms of creating jobs and our government remains the major employer which has negative impact on the economy because government can no longer pay for the complex servants she has employed. Government is so involved in the business that the country has no economy creating jobs,” he said.

The private sector is the part of the national economy that is not under direct government control therefore, it encompasses all for-profit businesses that are not owned or operated by the government.

Sibiya also suggested that the country should diversify its export strategy and look at alternative ways of selling our products to abroad markets. This includes making diverse products from our produce than opting to sell it raw.

“We have sugar, which is our major export; we can make a lot of products for export purposes and make more than we would have when selling the raw sugar.

“ The same applies for our gold, if we could make jewelry that would contribute immensely to our economy than exporting the raw gold because the people that we sell the raw gold to make a fortune from its products,” he said.

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