REVEALED: LEGISLATORS’ E5M TRIPS IN 11 MONTHS

MBABANE – Legislators spent a little over E5 million on trips in the past financial year.

Even though Senate President Lindiwe Dlamini was identified as one presiding officer who frequently travelled to New York, several other legislators frequent the list of external trips undertaken by the lawmakers. The list includes Speaker Petros Mavimbela, who is also Mhlambanyatsi MP, Motshane MP Robert Magongo, Mhlume MP Victor Malambe and Deputy Speaker Phila Buthelezi, who have been on three or more international assignments. The list is contained in the Parliament Annual Performance Report for the Financial Year 2019/2020.
Clerk to Parliament Ndvuna Dlamini, when he appeared before the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) last Monday, alleged that he was not in control of some of the trips undertaken by the lawmakers as some of them were sanctioned by the presiding officers.

Performance

He further stated that there were some legislators who were frequent travellers and said metaphorically that they ‘live on planes’. The performance report reflects that the Senate president travelled to New York twice last year. The first trip was on February 21, 2019 where she attended a Parliamentary Hearing at the United Nations. The objective of the trip was to provide a platform for reflecting on global issues such as climate change, migrants and refugees. According to the report, the president was in the company of Assistant Clerk Isabel Ngubeni.  
The clerk (Ndvuna) confirmed that those were the trips which had been undertaken during the last financial year. “I grounded some of the trips because there was no money,” said Dlamini on Friday.

He said he would respond to the Senate president’s allegations against him before the PAC.  The Senate president again travelled to New York on September 22, 2019, where she attended a Women Political Leaders (WPL) 2019 Concordia Annual Summit. The summit provided a unique platform to reach decision-makers and opinion-formers in the public, private and non-profit sectors, and advance partnership solutions to the world’s most challenging issue. Part of the delegation included Senator Princess Ntfombiyenkhosi and Linda Pearl Dlamini, who was the committee clerk.

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