CIVIL SERVANT ARRESTED FOR FIRE NEAR PARLY

MBABANE – There are suspicions that the country’s legislative capital, Lobamba, was also under attack on Wednesday night.

A Parliament employee was taken into police custody for being responsible for a fire that broke out not far from the Parliament building and nearby historic buildings. Police are said to have suspected that the fire was part of the countrywide arson attacks on public and private infrastructure. The employee has been identified as Micah Dlamini, who is an usher in the House of Senate and a part-time driver for Senate President Lindiwe Dlamini. Micah, yesterday made an appearance before the Mbabane Magistrates Court. The arson attacks are being carried out by protesters who are calling for political reforms that will usher in multi-party democracy to replace the Tinkhundla System of Government.

Suspected

The fire is said to have been ignited between the Parliament building and the King Sobhuza II Memorial Park on the night and the employee was found in the vicinity, hence he was arrested as it was suspected that he was behind the inferno. The police are said to have been of the belief that the main target was the Parliament building. Clerk to Parliament Benedict Xaba said he was informed by security officers that Micah had been arrested in connection with the fire incident. “A report has reached me even though I am yet to get the finer details, but I did get information through security that there is an officer who has been arrested on suspicion that he was involved in the ongoing riots. I heard that he has been implicated in an alleged arson attack,” he said.

Confirmed

He confirmed that the officer’s position is that of usher but would also be asked to drive the Senate President when there was a need. “For now we have to wait for the law to take its course and then as Parliament, we can take it from there in terms of deciding on his employment here in Parliament,” the former minister of Health said. Xaba said security had since been reinforced in Parliament following the incident and hoped that the same would happen countrywide so that citizens could be protected. When Micah appeared before Mbabane Senior Magistrate Sifiso Vilakati, he was charged under the Grassfire Act of 1955 for having started a wild fire.  Impeccable sources said when the matter was heard, Micah’s defence was that it was not his intention to start the fire but was smoking a cigarette and the matchstick he had used to light his ‘smoke’ was the one that started the blaze after he carelessly disposed of it. Magistrate Vilakati is said to have enquired from Micah whether his igniting of the fire was also in conjunction with the ongoing political unrest and the suspect explained that it was not, but was just carelessness caused by smoking.

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