OWEN LATE, READS PSPF PRESS RELEASE, IRKS MPS

LOBAMBA – As if falling sick and missing a sitting the previous day did not spark enough chaos, Minister of Public Service Owen Nxumalo irked Members of Parliament to the core yesterday.

This was after he not only arrived late but had MPs seething with anger when he tabled what they termed an insult.
The minister was expected to table a ministerial statement explaining why he had stopped the probe by the FSRA into the administration of the Public Service Pension Fund (PSPF).

This is the same statement he failed to table on Wednesday as he reported sick.
Yesterday he was forced to be in Parliament after MPs demanded that the speaker should either find him or allow for a motion to remove him through a vote of no confidence, from his position as a minister.

When they saw him walking in, little did they know that he was carrying something that was about to anger them.
Instead of presenting what the MPs expected, Nxumalo read out a press statement that was issued by PSPF and had been published in both the country’s daily newspapers, the Times of Swaziland and the Swazi Observer.

As he read it out, some of the MPs were seen alerting each other that the minister was reading something similar to what was in the newspapers.

Some of them were even seen exchanging copies of the newspapers, while others stood up on a point of order to report it to the Speaker.
The practice in Parliament is that whenever a motion is moved that a minister should provide answers, he or she presents them through a ministerial statement bearing his signature.

The one that was presented by the minister was clearly written the words ‘press statement’ and had the name of the parastatal written in bold letters, and did not have the name of his ministry.
Nxumalo tried to justify this by claiming that the statement belonged to him as he had worked on it together with the management of PSPF.

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