PARLIAMENT FAILING TO CHALLENGE GOVT - UNIONS

MBABANE – Public sector associations (PSAs) are not happy with the current crop of legislators as they refer to them as attention seekers.

This, they said, following a number of issues that have reached dire stages without being noted at grassroots level where the MPs meet with the electorate weekly.
The issues the unionists referred to were the shortage of food in schools and medical drugs countrywide. They said the MPs were missing critical social issues which left the electorate in a compromised position. In support of their view, the representatives noted that parliamentarians failed to raise issues before they blew out of proportion.

Bheki Mamba, President of the Swaziland Nurses Democratic Union (SWADNU), said his organisation, since its inception, had voiced out the reckless spending by government and failure by MPs to seek accountability.
Mamba said the crusade by MPs to seem vocal about lack of priority on the matters of national concern was just a curtain used to lure voters into their camps during next year’s elections.
The unionist further said government would always find a challenge in delivery of the necessary social services as long as reckless spending was still part of their daily dealings due to failure by MPs to challenge government expenditure. He said government failed to appreciate the needs of the people and avail resources to those needs, instead, priority was given to items that benefit a few.

The nurses’ president said: “There is no medication in public hospitals, they can’t fund the Free Primary Education (FPE) programme and there is always food shortage in schools, yet they prioritise on international trips and travels.”
Mamba insisted that MPs failed to know basic concerns from their voters until it was a disaster. He alleged that chances were very high that some had abandoned their constituencies after being elected into power and would only resurface during elections to seek votes again.
“If they missed that their voters were not getting medicines at clinics, how can they note the ludicrous expenditure by government?” he asked rhetorically.

He said such expenditure should be a call to those who are patriotic to be vocal on government expenditure as their MPs were failing them.
Also joining the fray was Zwelithini Mndzebele, the Swaziland National Association of Teachers (SNAT) Secretary General, who noted that spending and lack of prioritising in government was the order of the day as those who were voted into office to represent the people failed to echo the cries of the masses.
He wondered how MPs missed critical issues like the shortage of food and medicines in their constituencies if they were in touch with the people.

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