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MBABANE – Subventions to SANU and EMCU are putting UNESWA at a disadvantage, as revealed by the NAWUSHI report.

The assertion came in a form of a response from the Ministry of Education and Training after the seven-member select committee wanted to know what means it had adopted to assist the university due to the disparities of the subvention request by the university and the allocation from government.

The Southern Africa Nazarene University (SANU) and the Eswatini Christian Medical University

(EMCU) are not owned by government.

In the response contained in the report, it was shared that most of the grievances of the university had been sorted, and the only outstanding issue was that of the underfunding of the subvention.

Compounds

It was further stated that the real issue that compounded the problem even further was the fact that government had to provide a subvention to other private institutions of higher learning, which had other shareholders and were equally capable of funding their private institutions. “Government has extended its subvention to cater for SANU and the christian university and this has left UNESWA in a highly disadvantageous position. UNESWA is wholly owned by government, yet the others have private ownership and some private funding. UNESWA is slowly undergoing an unnecessary death due to lack of funding,” reads the report.

It was also revealed that the Ministry of Labour and Social Security, which was responsible for paying out government scholarship, was not paying in time and there was a current outstanding balance of E65 million from last year.