... I was told junior officers responsible –Dumisile

MANZINI – Low ranking officers are alleged to be behind the locking of the gate at the Royal Eswatini Police Service (REPS) Headquarters.

Royal Eswatini Police Staff Association (REPOSA) Secretary General Sergeant Dumisile Khumalo confirmed that a report to support that the members of the staff association were behind this was shared with her.

Khumalo, who said she was out of the country due to a family challenge when this interview was conducted, said she received a report insinuating that this was a warning to their superiors. She said information shared with her confirmed that the junior officers were behind this.

“I was told that the junior officers were behind this in an effort to emphasise that they wanted their money. They are aggrieved and it is what they decided in the last meeting we had.”

She said the officers were adamant that they wanted Phase II of the salary restructuring exercise to be implemented this month. This past Saturday, the low ranking officers from both His Majesty’s Correcional Services (HMCS) and REPS held a meeting wherein they declared that they were ready to be fired for demanding Phase II adjustment of their conditions of service.

The officers vowed to exert more pressure on government to get what they believed belonged to them.

Demand

The pressure which they vowed to apply was to start yesterday and they said in each day in the upcoming weeks, there would be something they would do until their demand was met.

The ‘intrusion’ at the police headquarters happened against the backdrop of an impasse between the top brass of the REPS and low ranking officers.

The standoff emanates from an eight-year wait for the implementation of Phase II of the salary restructuring exercise in law enforcement agencies. This bottleneck saw the lowly ranked officers from both the HMCS and REPS petitioning the office of the Prime Minister (PM), Cleopas Sipho Dlamini, which did not augur well with the NATCOM and the Commissioner General (COMGEN) of HMCS, Phindile Lomakhosini Dlamini.

Rebuking

Both leaders of the organisations released press statements rebuking the act and re-emphasising that both law enforcement agencies were disciplined organisations, which did not march to raise concerns but used internal structures.

On the other hand, the petition delivery jostled government to hasten and raise money said to cushion the officers.

Minister of Public Service Mabulala Maseko announced that with effect from January 2023, the aforementioned law enforcement agencies personnel, inclusive of the Umbutfo Eswatini Defence Force (UEDF), would be awarded four per cent which shall be backdated to April 1, 2022.

This supposed solution by the Executive did not augur well with the junior officers as they said their only plea and prayer was the implementation of Phase II of the salary restructuring exercise, which should have been implemented eight years ago.

It is worth noting that the Phase II restructuring exercise is a continuation of Phase I, which benefitted about 1.2 per cent (102 out of 8 272) of the personnel in the REPS and HMCS.

The restructuring exercise of 2014, which was implemented on the same year using the Establishment Circular No. 2 of 2014, was to be followed by the implementation of Phase II; which would benefit a majority (about 98.8 per cent - 8 170 out of 8 272) of the officers in the two State security organs.