GOVT GETS AWAY WITH EVERYTHING

IT seems that government can have its cake and eat it too. This is because it is at liberty to make a mess out of the government system and the economy at large and then put it back on us the general public to save the day.

Thus far, it is increasingly becoming crystal clear to all of us that there is a lot of rot going on within government, not just on how it runs the G-wallet but also on the lack of accountability on how officials within the system can simply waste taxpayers’ money without any penalties.

To start from the top of the government system, the legacy of the late prime minister made it obvious to everyone that Eswatini’s government system is not about taking care of the needs of the ordinary people but rather a system used as an instrument for gaining power and enriching one’s family and network of friends to the detriment of the rest of unsuspecting emaSwati.

Talking about all of these ill-gotten gains, one has to then ask: where is the Eswatini Anti-Corruption Commission in all of this daylight looting of the public system and the G-wallet? There is not a single corruption bust that has been made by this commission that has saved the taxpayer the money that evaporates out of the G-wallet due to corruption. And instead of targeting the real shady deals that cost Eswatini billions of Emalangeni year-on-year, the commission will chase around the little stories just to keep us silent.

There is a list of tenders being awarded to undeserving individuals/companies that have resulted in incomplete roads, crumbling newly- built government buildings, just to mention a few of the shortcomings that become of these tenders.

The truth of the matter is that the national budget allocation on capital projects is just a legit method of greasing up the pockets of a few individuals who will come back to gouge the G-wallet even deeper. Only in Eswatini will a 1-5km narrow stretch of dirt road cost in the hundreds millions of Emalangeni just to pave it. The officials in charge just approve and maybe get their cut, who knows and who cares? Even when the Public Accounts Committee does make noise about the irregularities in payments, nothing really gets done to make people pay for stealing from government.

The money can leak out of the G-wallet, there is always no accountability on the responsible officers entrusted with safeguarding our money and delivering the country into the promised land of a First World nation. Instead, the taxpayer always has to be on standby to cough-up more money to rescue government when the money pit has been cleaned out.

Nothing ever gets done and government doesn’t have to do anything. That’s just how it is. I mean civil servants can be suspended only in theory. This is because they still enjoy a pay cheque every month with some even retiring with fat pensions. Even when the officer suspended is clearly in the wrong, no amount of government inquiry seems to be able to get to the bottom of things and impose serious penalties on any civil servant. If the crime is too egregious, government just transfers the employee to another department, case closed.

How is it that a cash-strapped government with an ever ballooning wage bill can easily dole out E15 million to employees on suspension? The only crime that government seems not to tolerate is absenteeism. In all of the suspension cases, the payment processing officers always manage to stop payment of salaries to the absconding civil servants. For our government system, it is okay to religiously show up to work to do no good.

If caught, the civil servant will just get a cushy comfortable suspension at home on full pay. Why not just use all of these cases of suspended civil servants to trim the number of civil servants and make savings on the wage bill? Nah, that is just too complicated for our government. Our government would rather do nothing. You, me, and everyone who earns some form of income is on standby to bail out our government and save the day. Government simply gets away with everything.

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