.......EIPA needs to DO better

After spending the better part of the Trade Fair period inside the pavilions and halls, I left with more questions than answers. The Eswatini International Trade Fair remains an important national platform, but this year's edition exposed some uncomfortable gaps that EIPA and its parent Ministry need to confront.

I have attended the Trade Fair since I was a child. Some of my earliest memories are from around 2005, when I would come with my grandmother. I have therefore watched the event change over the years, and perhaps that history is what made this year's edition particularly difficult to ignore.

Something has shifted. The Trade Fair does not feel like the Trade Fair I remember. That is not to say that EIPA does no good work. It does. The Eswatini International Trade Fair has an important place in the country's commercial calendar, and its history is significant.

The first exhibition was held from August 31, to September 7, 1968 as the Swaziland Independence Exhibition in what was then Bremersdorp, now Manzini. It attracted international participation from countries including the United States, the Netherlands, West Germany, Taiwan, Portugal, South Africa and Mozambique. Over the years, it evolved into the country's major trade and exhibition platform.

That history deserves respect. But history should not make an institution immune to scrutiny. If anything, the longer the Trade Fair has existed, the more we should be asking whether it is still meeting the standard expected of an international trade exhibition. This year, I found myself asking that question repeatedly.

When the Trade Fair opens, the Trade Fair should be ready!

On August 28, the first day of the 2026 exhibition, some exhibitors were still putting their stands together. I watched businesses continue building, painting, moving materials, and putting their displays together while the Trade Fair was already underway. On the actual day, you are only then building your stand from scratch?? Okay, Nara Smith!

The problem became even more noticeable during the Deputy Prime Minister's tour of the exhibition. Senior government officials and visitors were walking through areas where construction and installation work was still taking place. That is not the first impression I would expect from a major national exhibition.

There is nothing wrong with exhibitors wanting to make their stands attractive. The problem is the timing. If an organisation knows months in advance that it is exhibiting, why are some stands still being mounted on the very day the doors open?

My thing is, who is responsible for ensuring exhibitors are ready? Who checks that stands are completed before opening day? And where is the event management team in the days leading up to the exhibition?

These are not unreasonable questions. Then there was the environmental contradiction. This year's theme was “Unlocking Green Economy Opportunities for Sustainable Trade Promotion.” The theme speaks to sustainability, responsible economic activity, and the country's ambitions around the green economy.

But on the opening day, the physical environment sometimes told a very different story. There was paint. There was water. There was dust. There was construction material and general building activity taking place across parts of the grounds. I would take that any other day, but on the opening day? The floor is splattered with paint?

I found the contrast difficult to ignore. If we are going to put 'green economy' on the banner, surely the way the Trade Fair itself is prepared and managed should reflect at least some of those principles. The green economy cannot only exist as a theme.

Where did everybody go?

The next thing I noticed was how different the Trade Fair felt. I was at the exhibition from day 1 to the last, and throughout that period I found the pavilion noticeably quieter and more spacious than I have experienced at previous editions. I'm not saying EIPA is to blame there, but also??

There were halls where you could simply walk. For someone who has attended this event for years, that stood out.

I am deliberately not putting a percentage on the decline in attendance because that is something EIPA should provide through its official visitor figures. I can only speak to what I saw and experienced while I was there. And what I saw was an exhibition that, at times, felt unusually empty.

It was not only the public that appeared to be missing. During the period I attended, I did not see a commercial bank exhibiting inside any pavilion. That is my own observation. I was physically there.

Last year, at least, FNB had a presence outside the pavilion. This year, the closest representation of conventional banking that I personally encountered was an ATM outside, alongside financial cooperatives and other organisations.

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For an event that is supposed to bring business together, the absence of a major commercial banking presence is worth questioning. Banks sit at the centre of the business ecosystem. They finance businesses, provide transaction services and are an important part of the conversation around entrepreneurship and growth.

So why are they not exhibiting? Is the cost too high? Is the return not attractive enough? Are businesses not seeing enough value in having a physical presence at the Trade Fair? EIPA should know.

And the public appetite?

There was another part of this year's experience that deserves attention. The appetite for the Trade Fair itself appeared to have softened.

Again, I am not presenting that as an official attendance statistic. It is an observation based on being there and speaking to people who attended. In conversations with people at the Trade Fair, I heard disappointment about this year's edition.

One of the things several people mentioned was the absence of the Win a Car competition, which had been a major attraction at last year's Trade Fair. That might sound like a small complaint, but it tells us something about how people experience the event.

For some members of the public, these attractions form part of the excitement and anticipation around the Trade Fair. When something that previously drew people in disappears, there needs to be something else that creates an equivalent reason to attend.

The answer is not that the Trade Fair should become dependent on competitions. It should not. But EIPA should understand what makes people want to come through those gates. A successful trade exhibition needs both sides of the equation: businesses must see value in exhibiting, and the public must see value in attending.

This year, based on what I saw and what people told me, both seemed to have weakened. That should concern the organisers.

What exactly are exhibitors getting back?

This brings me to a conversation that needs to happen beyond attendance figures. There are businesses that believe exhibiting at the Trade Fair is expensive.

There are also businesses that feel the return is more about visibility than actual sales or meaningful business leads. And honestly, that is a fair question.

If a business spends thousands of emalangeni on a stand, pays staff to be there for days, produces promotional material and invests in the physical appearance of its exhibition space, it is entitled to ask: what am I getting back?

A beautiful stand is not necessarily a successful stand, a crowded pavilion is not necessarily a successful trade fair either. The real measure should be what happens beyond the photographs. Did they meet investors? Did they make connections that continued after the pavilion closed? These are the outcomes that give a trade fair commercial value. And if exhibitors are not seeing those outcomes, eventually they will stop coming.

What happened to the 'international' in International Trade Fair?

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This is where I think EIPA needs to look beyond simply filling stands. The Trade Fair has a long history of international participation. Its original exhibition in 1968 attracted interest from several countries, and over the decades the event developed into a platform intended to connect Eswatini to regional and international markets.

That is a significant legacy. But an international trade fair cannot measure success simply by how many organisations occupy exhibition space. The bigger question is whether the event continues to attract the right organisations.

Where are the major financial institutions? Where are the large regional businesses? Where are the international buyers? Where are the investors? Where are the companies that can create supply-chain opportunities for local businesses? And perhaps most importantly, why are some organisations choosing not to come?

Those are questions EIPA should be asking exhibitors, including those who decided not to participate. The answers could tell the organisation far more about the health of the Trade Fair than a gate count ever will.

Ten days is a long time

The Trade Fair runs for a significant period, and maintaining an exhibition of this size requires consistent attention long after the opening ceremony is over.

This year, however, there were moments when that attention appeared to be lacking. Some of the issues were small on their own, but together they contributed to an experience that felt less coordinated than it should have been.

Stands needed attention, the general environment required closer monitoring, and some of the basic details that shape a visitor's experience seemed to fall through the cracks.

That matters because event management does not end when the pavilion opens. An exhibition running for days requires people actively monitoring the grounds, supporting exhibitors, maintaining standards and dealing with problems as they arise.

These may sound like small operational matters, but it is often the small things that determine whether a large event feels professionally managed.

And then there were the mascots.

Ngabisa and Jaha need boundaries!

I have no issue with mascots. You can tell by the attempt at a picture above. They can make an event more accessible, especially for children and families. Ngabisa and Zinyolicious were clearly intended to give the Trade Fair recognisable personalities and create a more engaging atmosphere.

But there are boundaries. During the Trade Fair, I personally experienced unwanted physical contact from a mascot. I did not consent to being touched or grabbed in that way.

That is not entertainment to me. How many more people felt that way ?? It is also something I believe EIPA should take seriously because a person wearing a costume is still representing the event.

Mascots need training. There should be clear rules around physical contact with members of the public, particularly children and strangers. There should also be supervision and a clear process for dealing with complaints.

I also personally saw what appeared to be mascots undressing or changing clothes behind the pavilion, and clothing being dried in that area. Why aren't they given proper housing or a place they can change at ??

I have photographs of what I saw. Why do we have a male parading as a female mascot?? Ngabisa is actually a boy inside, and a boy who does not understand that flinching probably means I'm uncomfortable.

Again, the point is not to embarrass the people inside the costumes. The point is professionalism. Thousands of people come through the Trade Fair from different backgrounds. Families bring children. Tourists attend. Businesspeople attend. The people working as mascots are part of the public-facing image of the event. The standard should reflect that.

Then there was accreditation

For the media, coordination was another frustration. Accreditation became unnecessarily difficult at times. If it was not the wrong number, it was the wrong email address. There were instances of journalists waiting in accreditation queues despite applications having been submitted weeks earlier.

I will be fair here. Media houses also have a responsibility. If accreditation is required, journalists and editors need to apply properly and on time. But coordination works both ways.

If EIPA wants professional media coverage, media accreditation should be organised in a way that makes it possible for journalists to do their jobs.

A national trade exhibition should not be difficult to cover because basic communication has broken down.

Have we become too comfortable with events?

My concerns about the Trade Fair also take me back to the Eswatini Investment Conference held in 2025. That conference was presented as a major investment platform, with E37 billion in investment pledges announced.

There is value in attracting those commitments, and it is important to acknowledge that some of the projects associated with the conference have since shown signs of progress. But the conference also raised questions about how we approach large economic events in Eswatini.

Do we organise them because they are genuinely strategic platforms, or because they are events that are expected to happen? That distinction matters. For a country of our size, with limited resources, our major economic events should speak to one another. EIPA is responsible for investment promotion and the Trade Fair.

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So why should the International Trade Fair, the Investment Conference, and other business initiatives feel like separate events rather than parts of one larger economic strategy? Imagine a Trade Fair where promising businesses are identified and connected to finance.

Imagine exhibitors being assessed for export readiness. Imagine international buyers being brought specifically to meet local producers.

Imagine a business that starts with a small stand at EITF eventually becoming an exporter because the connections made there opened that door. That is the kind of long-term value an international trade fair should be creating.

We need to stop confusing activity with impact

The EITF has survived for decades because it matters. That is exactly why this conversation needs to happen. I am not arguing that EIPA should scrap the Trade Fair. I am arguing that it should be better.

I want to walk into the pavilion and feel that Eswatini is serious about trade. I want exhibitors to feel that their money was well spent. I want businesses to arrive ready before the doors open. I want major financial institutions and private-sector players to see genuine value in participating.

I want the public to have a reason to look forward to the Trade Fair every year. I want the green economy to be reflected not only in the theme but in the execution. I want media coordination that reflects the standard of a national and international exhibition.

And I want mascots that entertain people without crossing personal boundaries. None of that is unreasonable. In fact, it is the standard we should expect from an institution responsible for promoting Eswatini as a place to trade and invest.

EIPA has an important mandate. The Trade Fair has an important history. But neither should become an excuse for complacency. The question now is not whether the Trade Fair will return next year. Of course it will. The question is whether it will return better.

Because if we continue measuring success by whether the pavilion opened, whether the banners went up, and whether the event made it onto the annual calendar, then we are measuring activity.

I would have loved to get into why we would have people at a family-friendly event actively recruit people to create gambling accounts?? We do know that gambling is a scourge and we have lost people to it, but we have people convincing you to create an account to gamble? UUUHHHM yeah Okay!

We should be measuring impact. And perhaps that is the uncomfortable question this year's Trade Fair has left us with: What in the pavilion is going on?