Some officers: Dumisile not ’art of visit to

NHLAMBENI - The junior officers who visited the private residence of the Prime Minister (PM), Cleopas Dlamini, disassociated Sergeant Dumisile Khumalo from their act.

Khumalo is the Secretary General of the Royal Eswatini Police Staff Association (REPOSA).

The low ranking officers said Khumalo had in fact contacted them after seeing this publication’s post on social media narrating their arrival at the PM’s private residence.

They said in her communication with them, Khumalo had instructed them to leave the premiers residence as it was wrong to go there.

She implored them to wait for a meeting where they would have a collective resolution on the matter.

“The SG is not here and she did not send us here. We did this on our own accord as we are feeling the pinch of being lowly paid while our superiors earn lucrative salaries,” one officer said.

Disassociate

Also, the junior officers distanced themselves from some executive members of REPOSA, who visited media houses to disassociate themselves from Khumalo. These officers included the Chairperson of REPOSA Isaac ‘Kaira’ Lukhele, Deputy Chairperson Themba Gwebu and executive member Boy Boy Thwala. Following the assertions of the executive members, the junior officers said they were not aware of them because they had not seen them in meetings. The low ranking officers referred to the executive members as ‘people claiming to be part of the association’.

“We know Sergeant Dumisile Khumalo as she attends meetings. We shall visit their homesteads so that they can explain to us why they disowned our SG,” the officers said. In light of the junior officers’ assertions, this publication sought comment from the chairperson.

Intentions

In response, Lukhele said: “Although I don’t know their intentions to visit me but they are welcome. They must tell me the date and time, but they must not visit during the night.” Meanwhile, the low ranking officers in their media address also bemoaned the manner in which the management of the Royal Eswatini Police Service (REPS) was dealing with the implementation of Phase II. Their feeling was that the personnel in management was mostly working on contract as they had surpassed the statutory retirement age of 60; hence they did not feel the pinch that low ranking officers felt. They then supposed that elderly people should not be retained in positions on contractual basis as there were many qualified and educated officers within the REPS who could assume leadership roles.

They claimed that the management of the REPS had nothing to lose and it was for this reason that they were not engaging the issue of implementing Phase II of the salary restructuring exercise with the urgency it deserved.