BONUS BEDLAM AT SEC

MBABANE – Angered by the executive management’s delay in paying bonuses this year, employees of the Swaziland Electricity Company (SEC) have banned the executive from delivering Christmas party speeches.

In other depots around the country, the SEC workers decided to cancel Christmas parties, in protest against the executive management’s style of leadership.
For instance, one of the executive managers was embarrassed on Saturday when she was stopped from delivering a speech on behalf of acting Managing Director (MD), Meshack Kunene, at a Christmas party for staff of the SEC Manzini Depot.
Workers, including senior managers, are unhappy with management for alleged failure to pay their performance-based bonuses which were due in September 2016.

The Swaziland Electricity Company (SEC) is a public company owned by the Government of Swaziland.
It was established in 1963 as a parastatal and recently started operating in a liberalised market through the Electricity Company Act (2007), The Energy Regulatory Authority Act (2007), as well as The Public Enterprises (Control and Monitoring) Act of 1989.

SEC has 10 depots – Stonehenge (Mbabane), Pigg’s Peak, Manzini, Malkerns, Matsapha, Nhlangano, Siteki, Big Bend, Hluti and Mhlume.
As their relationship with the acting MD seems to be sour, the workers have threatened to pass a vote of no confidence on Kunene.

Their union, the Swaziland Electricity Supply Maintenance and Allied Workers Union (SESMAWU) has even written a letter of complaint against the office of Kunene.
The letter was dated November 14, 2016. “All our issues raised with the office are ignored, they are taken for granted, ie they are not given the attention they deserve and our issues take time to be resolved,” reads the letter.
The executive of SESMAWU raised seven complaints against the office of the MD, mainly accusing him of refusing to work with the union. “The office of the MD always condones Management even on issues that seem to be in breach of our agreements,” further reads the letter.

They threatened to petition the MD’s office anytime after they had delivered the letter.
Mluleki Sibandze, the Secretary General of SESMAWU, confirmed that workers cancelled some parties around the country because they were not happy with the executive management.
He said workers told him management delivered one and the same speech every year, which focused on how the company experienced financial problems.

Sibandze said it was for this reason, therefore, that workers felt they would not allow management to tell them about the financial problems.
He did not give details on the matter as he said management had barred them from speaking to the media about company issues.

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