TEACHERS UNHAPPY AFTER E46M PROFIT

KWALUSENI – Teachers stormed out of their cooperative society’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) yesterday, in protest against a 6.5 per cent interest declared on their dividends.

They were not satisfied with the dividend interest because their credit and co-operative society made profit of E46 million in the financial year under review.

They also complained that they had not received interest lower than eight per cent on dividends in the last two financial years.
The SNAT Savings and Credit Co-operative Society held its AGM yesterday at the University of Swaziland’s Sport Emporium Hall in which 3 500 teachers attended.

The society was formed and launched in 1986 and to date has active membership of over 7 500.
This is in sharp contrast with the poor attendance recorded by SNAT in its last two meetings held at Bosco Skills Centre in Manzini where less than 500 teachers attended.

Petros Dlamini, the chairman, ended up addressing about 200 teachers after hundreds of them had left the hall in protest while the meeting was progressing.
The chairman said the co-operative society recorded a deficit because it failed to comply with an auditing instruction that members’ interest on dividends be 5.25 per cent in 2012.

Instead, he said, the board approved a 10 per cent interest.
He said an auditing instruction from Kobla Quashie was also ignored in 2013, to declare a two per cent dividend interest as members received eight per cent dividend interest.

Dlamini said the society wrote a letter to the Financial Service Regulatory Authority (FSRA) requesting the declaration of an eight per cent interest but the request was turned down.

He said FSRA ordered the society to adhere to the 6.5 per cent recommended by the auditors.
“We wanted to add 1.5 per cent to the 6.5 per cent interest recommended by the auditors but the FSRA rejected our request,” Dlamini said.
As a result of going against auditing recommendations, he said, the society accumulated a deficit of E15 million.

In another development, teachers complained about the Swaziland Regulatory Authority (SRA) for taxing their interest on their savings.
Lucky Zwane said he hated SRA for impoverishing the teachers.

He said teachers would die poor as long as the SRA imposed ungodly taxes on their savings.
Nozipho Dlamini, a board member, tried to explain that SRA taxed the interests accrued from savings, not the savings.

Teachers did not understand the explanation and criticised the authority for taxing money that had already been taxed.
A teacher, who identified himself as Shongwe, said there was a syndicate masquerading as a government that enriched itself by siphoning money from teachers.
Siphiwe Nkambule said teachers were not happy with SRA.

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