STATEMENT BY THE RT HON PRIME MINISTER
DR B.S.S.DLAMINI
AT THE SPTC LAUNCH OF BRAILLE DIRECTORY AND VISION 2022 POSTAGE STAMPS
AT THE ROYAL SWAZI CONVENTION CENTRE
THURSDAY 24 JULY 2014
Honourable Ministers
Chairman, Managing Director and Board Members of SPTC
Distinguished Guests
Ladies and Gentlemen
Today we are meeting on a subject that is an activity as broad ranging and compelling as any human activity. I am talking of the activity we know as communication. In its best form it is a vibrant component – in fact, a key pillar - in a stable and peaceful society, or business or, indeed, a marriage. It is a primary tool for achieving objectives as routine as the sharing of information or as dramatic as the securing of peaceful co-existence among a country’s population or between rival countries. In its absence there can be chaos and human and material destruction. As the old saying goes – “while there is talking there is no reason for fighting.”
And the means of communication are manyfold. As human beings we started with sign language, then talking, followed by writing and then printing. Some disciplines embraced morse and semaphore codes, some societies used smoke signals. Over time, we progressed to talking by means of landline telephones until the modern era when you would feel lost without your cellphone and the spectacular means of almost immediate communication with others, whether back in the office or on the other side of the world. And this advanced form of communication, at a distance through electrical signals or electromagnetic waves, with the many different technologies involved, lives with the generic term, telecommunications.
Telecommunications dominate our lives today. They are, of course, the conduit for speeding up contact between people or transmitting information. The paperless office has been predicted worldwide over the past two decades but is slow to arrive. On the other hand, here in Swaziland, our Government can boast a paperless Cabinet and the advent of a number of online public services though the Internet, with many more to come.
Modern technology is generally hugely advantageous by any criteria. But, as with all tools and techniques, it boils down to how you use them. Being able to contact your Managing Director while on a field visit, or subscribe to a degree course that comes courtesy of satellite television are highly valuable. But where a teenager spends a chemistry lesson whatsapping friends that is a sad waste of important education time.
Swaziland Posts and Telecommunications Corporation (SPTC), our telecommunications company that is at the present time wholly owned by Government, has the mandate to deliver basic telephony services as well as high speed Broadband Internet services to businesses, schools, Government, NGOs and citizens of our country. And the past 20 years has seen an enormous amount of progress in communications technology – all advantageous to the further development of our country. SPTC are our hosts today to launch two important initiatives.
There is something of a background to the first of these initiatives. Through the United Nations, the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) represent a unifying set of development objectives for the global community. The MDGs foster collaborative action to reduce poverty, improve health, and address education and environmental concerns around the world’s most pressing developmental problems. The MDGs are specifically designed to address the needs of the world’s poorest citizens and the world’s most marginalized populations. As a Nation, we are working hard to meet the targets of the MDGs, and the new Swaziland Development Index 2022 draws heavily from the criteria enshrined within the MDGs.
As a further development, the United Nations is now mainstreaming disability in its MDG policies and a roadmap is being prepared for ensuring that the issue of disability is drawn into MDG policies and plans. This concept was also clearly articulated in the 2014 Dubai Declaration, following the World Telecommunication Development Conference earlier this year.
SPTC has recognized that, while technology advances in a way
that provides continually improved means of communication for the majority of people, there is a section of society that has been conspicuously overlooked. If you are blind or visually impaired to a severe degree, how on earth are you going to gain access to the means of communicating with the thousands of people and services displayed in the telephone directory?
Increasingly aware of the lack of user-friendliness of the current telecommunications directory, SPTC, through its social responsibility programme, has recently taken on the job of developing a directory that is written in Braille. And, today, that Braille directory is being launched for which we congratulate SPTC most warmly.
Braille is an amazing piece of innovation that was invented nearly 200 years ago by a man of that name, following his blindness from an accident at the age of 15 years. It is a series of raised dots that can be read with the fingers by people who are blind or whose eyesight is not sufficient for reading printed material. It is not a language but a code by which any language can be read by those conversant with the spoken form. SPTC has duly produced 10 Braille directories and these will be placed in various locations around the country including the Mbabane National Library, Swaziland National Archives, the University of Swaziland and St Joseph’s School, among others. And, since we now have the project up and running, we intend to share our experience with neighbouring countries in the region with a view to spreading the benefit to as many blind and visually impaired people as possible.
Moving on to the second communication initiative being launched today by SPTC, let us reflect on the fact that, prior to the 1990s, the two or three centuries from the 1700s had seen the postal services as the predominant means of communication among people, institutions and countries. This means of communication started with the transportation of letters and parcels by means of Shanks’s pony (otherwise known as the feet) then to the coach and horses, and ultimately by virtue of the aircraft jet engine.
Well, the letter is no longer the primary, or even the generally chosen, means of communication but it is still important everywhere in the world. It has physical and legal characteristics and implications that have not yet been replaced by telecommunications technology. And, of course, what is different about a letter or parcel is that it will usually have one or more attractive postage stamps affixed, to reflect in the first instance that the requisite fee has been paid for transportation.
But the significance and importance of the postage stamp does not end there. For a very long time the stamp has also been the means of commemorating important events or the displaying of our great leaders and world figures. And invariably the postage stamp reflects considerable artistic skill or historical significance.
During the course of last month, Government’s Programme of Action for the five year Administration to 2018 was published, together with the Swaziland Development Index which captures key development indicators, and enables us to track progress towards achieving first world status by 2022. The Postal Services Division has shown its creativity by designing and producing a series of stamps that capture the country’s 2022 vision. As an artistic and informative means of communication, postage stamps catch the eye of, and connect with, many people and institutions both inside and outside the Kingdom. So, as well as reminding everyone across the country of some of the dimensions and expectations of Vision 2022, this series of stamps is a window through which the world can gain information about our country’s achievements and aspirations.
The stamps cover places of interest, sport, national and cultural events as well as nature and conservation. We see our first national soccer team at the time of Independence in 1968. Our national clinical laboratory services and emergency preparedness are displayed on different stamps to reflect major health service milestones, and on another stamp we are reminded of the implementation of free primary education. The Lubovane Dam in the lower Usuthu Basin reflects our progress towards food security and job creation, and the postage stamp that shows our new King Mswati III International Airport will be used for mail and parcels that are being sent across the world.
Stamp collectors, or philatelists as they are known, will be pleased to learn that this issue will be available not only for postage use but also in the form of sets, first day covers, miniature sheets, pairs, gutter pairs, collective pack, cylinder block and se-tenant strip. Goodness me, I didn’t know philately was so complicated!
And this is the start of a programme of stamp issues that will be aligned to the recently launched Government Programme of Action leading towards the ultimate achievement of Vision 2022. I do congratulate SPTC on its creative approach to reminding our people and informing the rest of the world about our development unusual approach to the coming years. I trust, furthermore, that the resourcefulness applied to transmission of these positive messages countrywide and worldwide will be reflected in SPTC’s progress in meeting the goals of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) Postal Strategy 2013-2016.
I am sure the constant display of our material aspirations will serve to motivate everyone in the Kingdom to play their part in what we described in the Programme of Action as the “social contract” where each person does his or her best to work hard and collaborate to keep our society productive, stable and peaceful, and thus contributing towards our targets of faster economic growth that will provide the resources to finance our planned improvements in public service delivery.
It is now my honour, on behalf of His Majesty’s Government to declare the Swazipost towards 2022 stamps, and the SwaziTelecomm Braille Telecommunications Directory duly launched.
Thank you.