GOVT PAYS ENGINEER E1.2M FOR NOTHING, FOR ABOUT 5YRS

MBABANE – A civil servant has been paid almost E1.2 million while not working, for almost five year.

The civil servant, who is a female engineer, was initially hired by the Ministry of Public Works and Transport but before 2018, she was engaged by the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Trade to assist in some building projects of the ministry in Matsapha and other places. This was revealed yesterday during the appearance of the Ministry of Commerce before the Public Accounts Committee (PAC). The female engineer is said to be paid at the E2 scale, which pays about E20 000 to E22 000 per month, hence independent calculations by this publication show that she was paid around E1.2 million. The female engineer was engaged in the projects of the Ministry of Commerce with another engineer and in 2018, they both had to return to their initial ministry (Public Works). However, the engineer in question refused to go back to her position. When she reported for duty at the Commerce Ministry, she was told to return to her old ministry, hence she decided to stay home.

Concerns

Yesterday, the Principal Secretary (PS) in the Ministry of Commerce, Siboniso Nkambule, told the PAC that the employee raised concerns that she could not go back to the Ministry of Public Works and to the same position she held before because there had been promotions at the Ministry of Works while she was with the Ministry of Commerce. Nkambule said the employee stated that these promotions resulted in her being junior to certain employees, hence she could not take that. Nkambule said that was the only contention of the employee in question. He said the matter was now with the Civil Service Commission (CSC).  The PS said they met with the CSC over the past weeks regarding the matter but the CSC did not give them straight answers as to how the matter was being dealt with. He said, therefore, his ministry was still waiting for responses from the CSC.

PAC Chairperson MP Musa Kunene said it was concerning that the matter of this employee would drag for so long whereas under normal circumstances, when an employee was absent from work for three days, that employee should be taken to task. He said it was unfortunate that the PAC was unable to call the CSC to respond to them on this matter. He asked the representative of the Ministry of Public Service, who was present yesterday, Eugene Shongwe to state how his ministry could advice on this matter. Kunene said the employee was drawing so many funds from the government while not being productive.

Shongwe said it was indeed concerning that there was such a gross occurrence in the concerned ministries. Shongwe agreed that the matter had dragged for so long now. However, he stated that the right person to respond on the matter was the controlling officer of the Ministry of Commerce. Mangcongco Member of Parliament (MP) Sibusiso ‘Scorpion’ Nxumalo wondered why the ‘no-work-no-pay’ rule did not apply in this employee who was costing government so much for doing nothing. In response to this, Shongwe said there were procedures to be followed before the no-work,  no-pay rule could be applied. He said the concerned ministry should write a letter to the Ministry of Public Service seeking approval to apply the rule.
He said so far, his ministry had not received any letter to that effect. The PAC implored the Ministry of Commerce to write the letter to seek the approval to apply the ‘no-work, no-pay rule to the employee in question.

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