Africa-Press – Eswatini. Business owners under the Federation of Eswatini Business Community (FESBC) are lamenting that the delay of payments by government is killing their businesses.
Yesterday, the FESBC Hhohho executive members held a meeting to discuss issues affecting their businesses, more especially those supplying government. The members were led by the FESBC Hhohho Chairperson Johannes Manikela. The meeting was also attended by FESBC Deputy President Thulisile Dladla, in her capacity as the vice president and also a member of the Government Tender Board.
Discussions
The businesspeople started by lamenting that government was not open enough for discussions and to listen to their concerns as they had tried many times to seek audience with the senior government officials including the Principal Secretary (PS) in the Ministry of Finance Sizakele Dlamini. The businesspeople alleged that they had been seeking an appointment with Dlamini but in vain. They presented a letter where they stated that they had written to Dlamini but there were still no responses. In the said letter, they listed at least seven concerns that they wanted to discuss with Dlamini. Among those issues are the delays in payment by government. They stated that the delays were affecting their businesses in a way that is financially crippling and are finding it hard to continue with their businesses.
Delays
The business owners stated that the delays led to them failing to comply with their tax obligations and further fail to pay salaries. They stated that they were struggling to get paid by government. “Job losses are eminent due to the delay of payments by the government,” said the businesspeople. They further complained about the tender requirement and that they were unfair to them as businesspeople and those requirements kept on changing over and over again. They further pleaded with the government to look into the tender awarding duration, as initially it was supposed to be within a certain period but it was not the case.
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