WHERE DO PRIORITIES LIE?

Comments

The decision by government to allow Members of Parliament to jump the pay-day queue to receive their settlement and relocation allowances raises serious questions about whether or not the new broom knows which direction it ought to be sweeping.

For legislators, who have already been paid their normal salaries, to be rejoicing their bumper allowances while hundreds of businesspeople have been waiting for months, if not years, for payment, is unfair. Why the special treatment, especially when it takes government more than three months to pay a newly- employed civil servant.

Where do our priorities lie?
Is it not more beneficial for a government to pay its service providers, who have exhausted bank overdrafts, in order to keep the businesses operational to retain jobs while deriving the much needed taxes to help it meet its national obligations?

How could an MP’s ‘comfort allowance’ be more important than hospitals facing a serious shortage of essential drugs where the lives of pregnant women and their babies are at risk of death because of this?

Allowances

Is it fair to have these allowances jumping the queue while government cannot afford to pay water and electricity bills, creating a serious health hazard for some civil servants whose ablution facilities are non-functional?

If we are sincere that government has no money, then why do we see the return of the foreign car hire frenzy hardly weeks after such a practice was banned by the Prime Minister Ambrose Dlamini? Are these cars confirmation that he was taking us all for a ride?

We were given firm promises that a new broom was to sweep clean and in a direction that would see our economy rise from the ground and soar like an eagle. Financial prudence was top of the list. Can we say it still is?

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