Home | News | GOVT’S E4M STALEMATE WITH EPTC

GOVT’S E4M STALEMATE WITH EPTC

21/08/2020 04:58:00 BY SIBONGILE SUKATI

Font size:

LOBAMBA – The Eswatini Posts and Telecommunications Corporation (EPTC) is deliberately withholding just over E4 million which it owes government.

The reason allegedly being forwarded by EPTC is that government itself owes the parastatal about E4 464 001.

This was revealed by the Principal Secretary in the Deputy Prime Minister’s (DPM) Office, Makhosini Mndawe, yesterday when he appeared before the Public Accounts Committee (PAC).

The PAC was making a follow-up on whether the DPM’s Office had been able to recover an initial sum of about E12 million, which was held at EPTC under the elderly disbursement grant account.

The committee, which was chaired by its Deputy Chairperson, Gege MP Musa Kunene, heard that instead EPTC had remitted about E8.4 million back to the government coffers.

“EPTC wrote to us and informed us that since we owed them roughly the balance, which was in the region of E4 million, they would not transfer it until we paid them,” said Mndawe.

Mndawe said they had since written a Cabinet paper asking the latter to approve the facilitation of the payment.

MP Kunene said no matter what the two institutions owed each other, EPTC was expected to remit the entire amount.

Invoices

He further asked the DPM’s Office to furnish the committee with the invoices.

However, Madlangempisi MP Sibusiso Nxumalo asked if there had been no contract agreements entered into by the two entities.

Mndawe said the money which was owed by government to the corporation dated back to 2015 and it was for a pilot project conducted by the telecommunications company for the disbursement of the grants. He said it was agreed that EPTC would use its own finances to conduct the pilot project.

Mndawe said that was also why they had engaged government because they felt they were now being held to ransom by EPTC.

“Sesibanjwe ngabhongwane,” said Mndawe in vernacular.

Mntfongwaneni MP Roy Fanourakis said both the DPM’s Office and the corporation were government entities and therefore should fix the matter amicably using the necessary paperwork.

It was reported that the delay in the payment to EPTC was that the parastatal had not delivered on some components of the Service Level Agreement which were requirements of the pilot project. On a related note, however, the PS revealed that government still had a contract with EPTC on the disbursement of the elderly grants.

He said they hoped that the new service providers would be able to take over by the end of September.

Mndawe said although when COVID-19 hit, the services of electronic money transfers were used and it did not mean that EPTC was not on board.

Gatherings

He said both MTN Mobile Money and Eswatini Mobile’s e-Mali were engaged because they were trying to avoid the large gatherings caused by the manual distribution of the E500 monthly elderly grants.

Mndawe said the elderly seemed to appreciate that they received their money through their cellphones as they were flexible to collect it at their own convenience.

He said on Wednesday, they had narrowed the potential future vendors from eight to four and by September 11, they hoped the entire process would have already been reviewed by the Tender Board.

He said the contract for the chosen vendor would be for a period of five years. The PS further revealed that the vendors would show them their proposed systems, which would eventually be owned by government.

He added that they were also considering the payment of the grants on a monthly basis instead of the quarterly disbursement.

“We are still going to engage the Ministry of Finance to see if this is possible given the cash flow challenges in some instances,” said Mndawe.

On another note, it was revealed that Nedbank Swaziland had repaid the DPM’s Office an amount of about E312 700, which was for elderly grants.

However, the bank had highlighted that there had been a memorandum of understanding (MOU) between the two parties on who would cover costs such as bank charges.