Costly trips to buy electricity units

MBABANE – Former Mazombizwe High School Chairperson, Bhekithemba Dlamini, once travelled to and from town on five consecutive days in an attempt to buy electricity units for the institution.

This was revealed during the PAC sitting on Monday where the committe wondered how Dlamini claimed for five days in a row, money for lunch and transport to and from Nhlangano.

This happened around November 2, 2018 where Dlamini was given a cheque of E1 500 to cash.

Dlamini and the former school head teacher told the PAC that they had experienced challenges with purchasing electricity units at Spar and in some instances at the Eswatini Electricity Company (EEC) offices.

“At EEC they would make us wait for a long time such that we sometimes were forced to come back the next day while at Spar they sometimes refused to take our cheques and, therefore, we couldn’t purchase the units,” said Dlamini. However, the members of the committee disputed this stating that the cheque had been in Dlamini’s name which, meant that he had cashed it and, therefore, could purchase the units in cash.

The PAC further asked why telephone calls were not made to enquire if the units were ready at the EEC offices after it was alleged that the latter would make them wait for hours.

Groceries

It was further brought to the attention of the PAC that Dlamini did not have a vehicle and they wondered why he would bother himself with taking a bus to Nhlangano everyday while carrying school’s groceries.

He corrected the PAC that he did not take a bus, but instead a kombi.

It was at this point that Dlamini’s then deputy, Gcwetha Khumalo, revealed that he had a car which he sometimes offered its services to the school as he lived nearby and would purchase some of the schools items.

The PAC wondered why Khumalo would then charge the school for transport when he was already on his way to town.

The PAC said there was clearly a lot of collusion between the head teacher, Dlamini and Khumalo and at some point, threatened to detain them in the Parliament cells so that they could speak the truth. The PAC further said the trio needed to be investigated by the Anti-Corruption Commission.

This is after Khumalo had irked the committee by stating that he could not remember some of the purchases as they were conducted a long time ago. However, he was cautioned that these were school funds and, therefore, he had the responsibility to manage them properly.

The PAC resolved that in its recommendations, it would make sure that the trio paid back the money.