Hiring freeze waiver abused to hire girlfriends – MPs
LOBAMBA – Some Members of Parliament (MPs) noted with concern that the waiver in the hiring freeze was being abused by certain government officials to employ their girlfriends.
They implored government to look into it as to whether having it in place served any purpose.
This came about during the Ministry of Public Service Portfolio Committee budget debate in Parliament yesterday.
The Minister of Public Service, Mabulala Maseko, had informed the MPs that the hiring freeze in government, which came into force after the introduction of the Circular No.3 of 2018, would soon be a thing of the past.
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As part of cost-cutting measures, government implemented Circular No.3 of 2018, which ordered the freezing of vacant posts and creation of new posts in all government ministries and departments.
When making his submissions during the budget debate in Parliament yesterday, Maseko said they were at an advanced stage of the management audits, which sought to evaluate the effectiveness of the circular and the exercise should be done by the end of the current month.
Maseko said he understood the difficulties which were brought about by the circular, especially because all the ministries were complaining about inadequate personnel as hiring or filling of vacant posts was frozen.
“We are currently working on the management audits, which should be completed by the end of this month, then Circular No.3 will be reviewed and done away with in the new financial year. We understand that it was making it difficult for all ministries to be functional,” he said.
Prior to his submission, some Members of Parliament (MPs) had voiced out their concern on the issue of the circular, stating that it was opening doors for corruption through the waiver option to fill critical positions. Ndzingeni MP Lutfo Dlamini said some officials in some ministries were abusing the waiver, requesting for same to hire their undeserving girlfriends and relatives while putting them on high salary scales.
Gege MP Musa Kunene said he knew of one government parastatals which was given the waiver for a certain project only for the entity to mismanage millions of public funds and nobody was brought to account for it.
Another issue that made it to a majority of the MPs submissions was that of the hiring of contract teachers on permanent basis, which the Ministry of Public Service committed to. Mabulala assured the legislators that the ministry was working tirelessly to
put that issue to bed because it was an obvious thorn to the parties affected and the country at large.
He stated that as mentioned during the budget speech debate last week, the ministry would hire half of the contract teachers in the financial year that would commence end of the current month and the rest would be hired in the subsequent financial year.
The issue of the contract teachers made the discussions in both the Ministry of Education and Training and the Ministry of Public Service whose portfolio committees were debating the budget allocated to their ministries for the next financial year in Parliament yesterday.
During the MoET budget debate, Madlangampisi MP Sibusiso ‘Scorpion’ Nxumalo highlighted that the Teaching Service Commission Act only allowed for teachers to be hired on a temporary basis for a maximum of two years and then enrolled on a permanent basis thereafter.
“The ministry is breaching the Act with impunity and it would come as no surprise if the teachers could take government on through the legal route. This is because a lot of these teachers have been on a temporary basis for more than two years,” he said. Nkwene MP Vulimpompi Nhleko voiced out his concern that the teachers hired on temporary basis were not pensionable and some of them were nearing the retirement age, making them unemployable.
KuMethula MP Derrick Masuku wanted the minister to state the exact number of teachers who were hired on contract and he reminded government that it should keep its promise of hiring half the teachers on a permanent basis or somebody would face the wrath of the populace since the nation was assured that the teachers would be hired on permanent basis.