My article on todays Sunday Observer reads: It’s all systems go, for the foreseeable future By Bongani Dube There are words and concepts that we shall be seeing more and more in the next few months, and years, culminating to the year 2022. These are existing concepts, tried and tested elsewhere, hence they should not scare you. You probably have used some or all of them as part of operational strategies of your organisation/company, your school, and maybe, your community as well. These are words that should form part of our day to day business interactions, hence chief executives are hereby called upon to be instrumental in their inculcation to the subordinates. These are words that should form part of pre-tertiary and tertiary education syllabi, hence curriculum developers are hereby challenged to rise to the occasion. And these are words that should form part of general societal intercourse within our residential and communal structures, hence leadership of our localities are hereby invited to champion this new dispensation. This, right here, is not another political essay; instead, this is the ‘development unusual’. Now, before suspense gets the better of you, let’s get to the first word. Vision. When I was in high school, before advanced education enlightened us, I used to picture eyes every time I saw or heard the word ‘vision’. What innocent and correct thinking. After all, vision has everything to do with what one sees. It is the ability, or inability, to see. It was when we got to acquire the so- called advanced education and/or working experience that we got to appreciate that vision, actually, meant more than seeing. It means ‘foreseeing’. Yes, a vision is a statement of intent, a statement that defines where we see ourselves in the ‘foreseeable’ future. Mark the word ‘foreseeable’. Now, critics and antagonists of Vision 2022 forgot that one simple prerequisite for defining a vision. It has to be foreseeable. There’s no way His Majesty King Mswati III, long live to the king, would have said ‘I have Vision 2100’ and expected us, the subjects to the throne, to relate. I mean, even slow-paced development is still development. So, Vision 2100 would have meant “Let’s be content with the slow-paced development that was obtaining back then”. Our wise king had a foreseeable vision. Chances of more than half the current population surviving to and beyond the year 2022 are very high, if nothing catastrophic or epidemic wipes us away. Read In our workplaces, we proudly display huge frames inscribed with our organisations’ visions, mission statements, and even values, in bold fonts, for all who care to read. More often than not, we neither read nor internalise those words ourselves yet we expect to take our organisations to the future. Naturally, the founders of the organisations are the ones who had that vision. Now, it becomes expected of us to study their vision and develop strategies and action plans that will fulfil it. Otherwise, we do not belong to the organisation if we suddenly disown its vision. Likewise, being patriotic means embracing national interest and adjusting our work ethic to be aligned to the country’s common goal. That is not politics. It’s basic development. Desired development rather. (Foreseeable) Vision 2022, therefore, meant that there was need for fast-tracking infrastructural development, as opposed to ‘slow or ordinary pacing’, for the betterment of our systems, processes, and most importantly, our lives. The problem with some of the pessimists among our midst is that they tend to mistake what they see in Western science-fiction movies as the ideal ‘First World Status’ that Swaziland dreams of. Look, when we say it’s high time that our people, we Africans of Africa, and Swazis of Swaziland, get to enjoy living and staying in Africa, and in Swaziland, we speak to issues of availability and accessibility of real life high tech or modern facilities and gadgets that will make our lives better. For instance, provision of free basic education becomes the basis for enlightening our people. Literacy, where all other variables are normal, is synonymous with development. Provision of affordable and accessible health facilities. Good health of citizens translates to the sustainability of the nation as a whole. Essential Internet access for all is essential. We cannot be observers while the world is busy becoming one global village. We simply need in. Development and maintenance of transportation networks, liberalisation of telecommunications gateways, investing extensively in agriculture, adding value to our natural resources as opposed to exporting raw materials, formalising urban habitation, investing in research, training, and education, among many others are all noble commitments towards attaining the king’s dream. Now, that cannot be done overnight. Vision 2022, in my own understanding, aims to achieve most of these as just an impetus for more growth to follow thereafter. In this discourse, dear reader, analysts would tell you that the country seemingly chose infrastructural development as the first port of call, hence the new international airport which, contrary to detractors’ ‘white elephant’ claims, is already set to be functional in spite of other ongoing work obtaining on site. Hence the state of the art road networks that have been built, linking our commercial cities to each other and to neighbouring countries. Hence the science park whose construction is already on going adjacent to Summerfield Resort. Hence the international convention centre and other millennium development projects that are ongoing. Now, chronicling all this, again, makes this writer no apologist for the government, because, as already stated, this is not politics. All these projects mentioned herein are tangible evidence of what development is. Thanks to that one word we introduced, ‘vision’. This, basically, is a challenge to all companies, clubs, and any other formal set ups, to revisit their respective visions. Those without one, then it’s time for initiating strategy formulation processes. Your respective visions as organisations, if attained, will complement and complete the bigger picture, that is, the national vision. When 2022 comes, chief executives will be liable to the nation in telling us how their organisations contributed in bettering the lives of our people. But that was just one word. Others, like ‘efficiency’, ‘good governance’, ‘quality control’, ‘service delivery’, ‘accountability’, come to mind. Let’s chew one bone at a time, lest we choke.
Posted on: Sun, 21 Sep 2014 13:01:50 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015