TUCOSWA lauds health, education budget, but …
MBABANE – The Trade Union Congress of Swaziland (TUCOSWA) has lauded the budget allocations for health, education and the increased disability grant.
TUCOSWA Secretary General (SG) Mduduzi Gina said: “We note that a whopping E5 billion equating to 17 per cent of the national budget has been allocated to education and training needs of the country. We only hope this will give some relief on the challenges currently faced by most schools and institutions of higher learning. Support staff employees in most schools would go unpaid for prolonged periods, due to the non-payment of their wages to the schools by government. This reflects so badly on the schools, but worse to government. We have also noted that government supported universities and colleges are unable to guarantee the payment of wages in a coherent and religious pay period. These institutions then run from pillar to post to meet their payment obligations every other month. We had hoped to hear the minister give confidence to the nation by assuring that such would be a thing of the past. The budgeted funds must ultimately reach these institutions.”
Consideration
He lauded government for the plan to develop a National Skills Development Master Plan for coordinated skills and demand programme. The SG said this would fix the overtraining in some fields without consideration of the market needs, which resulted in the saturation of some professions.
On the health sector’s representation of 10 per cent of the total budget, Gina said this was a step in the correct direction. He said the latest happenings in the ministry pointed out to a ‘free for all’ kind of expenditure, where corrupt and suspected fraudulent activities were daily occurrences. He urged the minister to assure the nation that government was competent to supervise and monitor the usage of these funds and that fraudsters would be prosecuted without fear or favour.
He added that the increase of disability grants beneficiaries to 14 459 suggested that the social assistance was awarded just on the basis of numbers that government may want to pay at a given period, not on the numbers of people with disabilities in the country.
“The minister has not come out on the actual numbers of the persons with disabilities for the appreciation of the percentage of the coverage of this social assistance. We note the slight upward movement to in the transfer, we are, however, convinced that the country can do better by aligning it with the elderly social grants and place it at E1 500 per month.”