Twisted government priorities
QUITE a lot is happening in our country these days, most of it shocking and unbelievable. Just as one has condemned similar acts before, one must condemn the arson attack on the residence of PUDEMO President Mlungisi Makhanya at Ntandweni under Malindza chiefdom.
Nobody ever wins from burning the property of another. I repeat nobody ever wins.
Whatever goal the perpetrators seek to achieve, apart from just ‘sorting the victim out,’ (kulaya) is never fulfilled.
No doubt, the other incident that has left many of us numb with shock is that of reports that nine inmates were brutally assaulted while within the precincts of the Correctional facility in Matsapha.
Among the nine are Members of Parliament (MPs) Mthandeni Dube and Bacede Mabuza. The assault was allegedly carried out by warders wearing balaclavas, which suggests that they knew what they were doing was wrong, immoral and unlawful.
It makes every liSwati cringe with fear and hopelessness as to what the future holds for our once peaceful country.
I just had to comment on these two evil occurrences before moving on to the other national issue that has been bothering me from last Monday.
This is the story that was carried by the Times of Eswatini daily on Monday, September 19, 2022.
It is possible that with so much happening, some may have missed it.
This was a report to the effect that government has approached Parliament with a request for a supplementary budget.
ADDITIONAL
The request was tabled by Minister of Finance Neal Rijkenberg in the House of Assembly 10 days ago.
The long and short of it is that government wants an additional E821.8 million to meet unanticipated financial obligations.
The actual amount is E821 816 251.
According to Wikipedia, a supplementary budget is the request for additional funds, filed by ministries and departments during the course of the year.
It is meant to take care of expenditure that was not factored in during initial budget making.
In Eswatini, the budget is planned for and prepared months before the beginning of the financial year, which is on April 1.
This is when officials from the various ministries and departments come together to discuss the various requests for allocations.
Before we proceed, let me state that I fully understand that there is no limit to the number of supplemental budgets the Finance Minister may request each financial year.
This is the norm in every country in the world. This kind of request is made as and when there is a need.
However, one cannot help but note that the request for an additional E821.8 million comes just five months into the financial year, which is still to run until March 31, next year.
What could this mean? Did the affected ministries miss certain financial obligations they needed to meet when the main budget was prepared?
Have they suddenly realised that they need more money for stuff they had not anticipated? Have certain financial obligations urgently come up, requiring the injection of additional funds?
INTERESTING
Secondly, the list of ministries that require additional funding, so early into the financial year, is itself quite interesting.
The Times report noted that the ministries of Agriculture and Labour and Social Security would get what was termed the lion’s share of the extra funding.
Agriculture will get E260 000 for both recurrent and capital expenditure.
Recurrent expenditure refers to money spent on daily, weekly or monthly items required to run an establishment, while capital expenditure refers to major projects like the construction of structures.
The Ministry of Agriculture has requested E160 million more for recurrent expenditure. Could the money be meant for farm inputs required by farmers, which government subsidises?
If so, was this not known before or did prices rise, just as they have for many other commodities?
After all, a year ago, nobody knew that a two-litre bottle of cooking oil would reach the E100 mark.
Anyway, one hopes the Ministry of Labour and Social Security wants to use the E200 million it has requested, or a bulk of it, to settle debts it has with students from institutions of higher learning.
We have all been witness to the frustration university and college students have gone through this year. A few of them even failed to endure the stress of financial frustration and decided to commit suicide.
This is a scandalous dent to the image of a government that signs contracts with the affected students, and then fails to fulfil its end of the deal.
That said, I noted that the ministries of Education and Health did not feature anywhere in the supplemental budget request.
In every country, these are the most crucial ministries but in Eswatini, they have been neglected for years.
It has come to a point where we all regard it as normal, that there will be a shortage of teachers in schools and that some schools, especially in the rural areas will not have adequate equipment, including desks at times.
SHORTAGE
Incidentally, the supplementary budget comes at a time when learners at Siphumelele Community High School in Dvudvusini, near Mankayane, boycotted classes in protest at the shortage of teachers.
They complained that there were not enough teachers to facilitate proper learning and the lack of enough food under the government-funded feeding scheme. This, as we all know, is a common complaint in many schools around the country. Swaziland National Association of Teachers (SNAT) leaders have complained about this until they were blue in the face, but the challenges persist.
It is therefore surprising that the Ministry of Education does not feature in the supplementary budget, as if everything is honky dory there.
Challenges facing the Ministry of Health are also well documented; from shortage of enough nurses and doctors to never-ending medical drug stock-outs.
Not surprisingly for Eswatini, the police, army and correctional services department will get a total of E90 million extra for the current financial year.
This is on top of the initial amounts running into billions of Emalangeni they received when the financial year began. Where do government’s priorities lie?