‘HELP REGISTER POLITICAL PARTIES’

LOBAMBA –The Trade Union Congress of Swaziland (TUCOSWA) has written a letter requesting the Human Rights and Integrity Commission to facilitate the registration of political parties in the country.

Recently, TUCOSWA executives had also been to the commission’s offices at Nkhanini, Lobamba, where they expressed concern over the non-registration of political parties.
However, Vincent Ncongwane, the Secretary General of TUCOSWA, said the commissioners and secretariat snubbed them when they arrived at Nkhanini.

“We failed to engage them in talks. In fact they didn’t want to talk to us. They treated us very badly,” he said.
He said they started engaging the Human Rights Commission in writing in 2011 when there was still the Swaziland Federation of Trade Unions (SFTU).  The last letter they wrote to the commission was dated January 17, 2014.  This year, he said, they reminded the commission of their numerous letters written to it about the need to open political space in the country.

He said TUCOSWA’s interest in the registration of political parties was informed by a report by Paul Benjamin, an International Labour Organisation (ILO) consultant.
In the report, Benjamin stated that the enjoyment of union rights in an atmosphere where political parties were not allowed to participate in the governance structures of the country was an exercise in futility.

Ncongwane said the country would not be in a trade crisis resultant from the loss of the benefits under the African Growth Opportunity Act (AGOA) if the commission had facilitated the registration of political parties.
He said the congress also called for amendments to the Constitution.

Meanwhile, Sabelo Masuku, the chairman of the commission, acknowledged receipt of letters from the congress, saying they were being addressed by the Ministry of Justice and Constitutional Affairs.
He said other issues raised in the letters could only be dealt with by the ministry. These issues, he said, included the laws proposed by the congress.

Masuku said the commission was compiling a report on its performance since the commission was instituted three years ago.
The commission has not compiled an annual report, which, according to the Constitution, should be submitted to Parliament on an annual basis.
Since its inception three years ago, the Human Rights Commission has been in breach of Section 168 (8) of the Constitution.

As a result, civil society branded it as useless. The section reads: “The commissioner shall make annual reports to Parliament on the performance of the Commission which reports shall include statistics in such form and in such detail as may be prescribed of the complaints received by the commission and the results of any investigations.”
Among other functions, the commission is supposed to investigate complaints concerning alleged violations of fundamental rights and freedoms under this Constitution.

It also investigates complaints of injustice, corruption, abuse of power in office and unfair treatment of any person by a public officer in the exercise of official duties. It can be said that Parliament has never received any annual report from the commission whose task is to protect human dignity and rights of persons. As a result, the public was denied its constitutional right to assess the performance of the statutory body.

Masuku, the acting chairman, said they would finally abide by the constitution. He said a report detailing the commission’s performance for the past three years might be submitted to Parliament in September 2014.
He said reasons for not complying with the Constitution were caused by inadequate staff. There was also not much to report on.
The acting chairman said the commission had tangible things to report on now.

“We are preparing a report to encompass also the previous years,” he said.
“In fact, we didn’t have a fully-fledged secretariat that could have prepared the report and there was also nothing much to report on.”

Post your comment

Your name:

Your e-mail address:

Add your comments:

Please enter the code you see in the image:

Image:

Code: