E15m spent on health allowances in year Eswatini achieves WHO mother-to-child

– The government has already spent over E15 million paying allowances for the Ministry of Health in just under a year. IIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIllllllllllllllllllllllllll

MBABANE

The last was for over 20 medical doctors who had taken the Ministry of Health to CMAC over the delayed payment of same.

Principal Secretary (PS) in the Ministry of Public Service Sipho Tsabedze told the Eswatini News in a previous interview that on-call allowance payment for medical interns was usually done biannually (twice a year).

This was after the Public Service Ministry had granted authority to pay salaries and arrears in salaries for 20 medical interns trained in the Republic of China (Taiwan).

Each of these medical interns was paid E284 468 for the services dating from August 2021 to July 31, 2023, following a protracted battle between the parties over this payment, resulting in the matter being taken to CMAC for intervention.

Allowances

“On-call allowances payment is usually done biannually after the Ministry of Public Service has done verifications of the claims as submitted by the Ministry of Health. The claims are not standard, as it depends on so many factors, including the workstation of the officer and the hours dedicated to the extended duty, in this case, on-call, as it’s for doctors,” Tsabedze stated at the time.

The intern doctors in question lodged a dispute with CMAC regarding their pay scale, which was reviewed by the government to ensure that the internship programme can offer the two-year programme to all emaSwati students who needed to complete it and be deemed fully qualified doctors by the Eswatini Medical and Dental Council. However, the CMAC ruling was in favour of the medical intern doctors, hence the payments of E284 000 per intern doctor.

Three months ago, the Public Service PS issued a memorandum, granting the ministry authority to pay 15 Environmental Health Officers E1 224 738.78 compensation after they were engaged on extended duty from April 2020 to January 2021. On top of that, E9 561 051.36, was also granted as combined payment for paramedic and senior paramedics along with payment for 362 EMS paramedics who were engaged for 18 months at 30 per cent of their basic salaries effective April 1, 2020 to September 30, 2021.

Payment

The EMS paramedics were paid as per the outcome of a court case issued on August 9, 2022, and noted that the first payment covering five months amounting to E5 311 695.20 was settled in November 2022, while the second payment covering nine months amounting to E9 561 051.36 was settled in March 2023. The last payment was E4 249 356.16. The request for payment of this money was channelled to the office of Accountant General (AG) in the Treasury Department.

It is widely expected that as the Health Ministry continues to fill up vacant posts, government coffers will also be heavily stretched.

Minister of Public Service Mabulala Maseko said issues of allowance payment were technical and handled by his PS.

“Issues of allowance payments for the different ministries fall under the jurisdiction of the PS, he would be in a better position to give an informed response on this,” the Maphalaleni Member of Parliament (MP) said.

MBABANE – Eswatini has a reason to celebrate, as more lives are now being saved in the fight against HIV/ AIDS.

Yesterday, various stakeholders working with the Ministry of Health, met at Mountain View Hotel to disseminate the results of a United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) supported survey to determine motherto-child transmission rates for HIV among exposed children in Eswatini.

Since 2002, the Ministry of Health has engaged in the Prevention of mother-to-child transmission (PMTCT).

Presented

A survey was then done to find out the impact of the exercise and it was this report that was being presented yesterday during an event that was attended by various stakeholder representatives and also from UNICEF and the Ministry of Health.

The results were presented by Nomphumelelo Mtunzia Senior Marketing and Evaluation Officer.

The results, according to Mtunzi mean that more children born from mothers who are HIV positive are likely to survive than previously.

Transmission

In the presentation, Mtunzi revealed that the World Health Organisation (WHO) had set a target that breastfeeding countries, which includes Eswatini should have a mother-to-child HIV rate transmission of less than per cent.