Politically aligned civil servants in for a shock

MBABANE – If all goes according to government’s plans, the law to deal with politically aligned civil servants will be ready this month.

Public Service Minister Mtiti Fakudze said the legislation was currently at drafting stage and, according to their plan, it will be debated by cabinet this quarter. The quarter ends on June 30.

“If it doesn’t meet any resistance in cabinet, we are positive that it will soon be tabled in Parliament in readiness to make it a law,” said Fakudze.
Early this year, Prime Minister Sibusiso Dlamini revealed that government was preparing legislation that would purge politically aligned government employees from the civil service. He said it was wrong for civil servants to serve the government yet they belonged to political parties.

Fakudze told Senators that civil servants who wanted to discuss political issues should first resign from the civil service and become full-time politicians.
During the debate on the Ministry of Public Service’s budget allocation by Members of Parliament around March, members of the ministry’s portfolio committee recom-mended that Fakudze should table the legislation in Parliament within three months. The whole House approved the recom-mendation and it became a resolution, meaning Fakudze had to implement it.

However, Fakudze has stated that there was an oversight on the part of the legislators as his ministry had already indicated that it had taken steps to address the issue.

He said there were certain stages, which his ministry outlined in a report tabled before the portfolio committee that explained all the steps the ministry was going to take and gave a progress report.

The minister said he would have expected that the portfolio committee would have monitored if his committee was sticking to the time-frame outlined in the report.
Civil servants have already expressed their disagreement with the proposed legislation and declared their intention to fight it.