PM’S CRITICS TOLD TO SHUT UP

MBABANE – The country’s businesspeople are the last ones to complain about the halting of tendering with government.

This is because they have, for years, turned government into nothing but a ‘cash cow’ and were partly to blame for the current economic situation. Making such a statement was Zachariah Dlamini, who is known in the hospitality industry, having served as the general manager of Orion Hotel (now Pigg’s Peak Hotel) in Pigg’s Peak for many years. Dlamini is currently not working due to contractual differences with the hotel and his statement is in response to one made by Chairperson of the Hhohho Region Federation of the Eswatini Business Community, Johannes Manikela, last Tuesday.

Worse

Manikela, during an interview with this publication, said as businesspeople, they were not in support of the halting of the tendering process with government as it would make the country’s current economic situation worse. In his view, Manikela said small and medium enterprises (SMEs) contributed immensely to the economy by paying tax which he said came from the tenders they received. Dlamini said the strategy by the Prime Minister, Ambrose Mandvulo Dlamini, PM was not just 100 per cent good but more than that, especially since tendering prices were high.

He likened the PM’s strategy to taking a cow that had been milked for years to safety in order to protect it from bleeding until it died. “The material procured to government has for years been at 200 per cent markup. Something that government could get for E150 would be sold for E1 500,” he claimed. He expressed his wish for government to introduce a trading account while it worked on a strategy that would deal with corruption in the tendering process. Furthermore, Dlamini alleged that there were many irregularities in the tendering process, one of which was that some businesspeople awarded brown envelopes to government officers who authorised tenders. “If you do not bring a brown envelope, you will not get the tender and this has been going on for years. It is such things that I believe the PM is trying to root out,” he said.

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