Africa-Press – Eswatini. Parliament has called on government to bailout the University of Eswatini (UNESWA), which they said was the pillar of education in the country.
In May, UNESWA Vice-Chancellor Professor Justice Thwala said the institution was in desperate need of a bailout from government to write off some of the debts, which include over E700 million owed to the Eswatini Revenue Service (ERS).
His sentiments were shared by UNESWA Bursar Mfanuzile Dlamini, who said the institution had a total debt of over E1 billion and depended on the relationship they had with their suppliers to stay operational.
This was during their appearance before the PAC.
The legislators raised concerns about the challenges faced by the institution during the ministry of education and training’s second quarter budget debate in Parliament yesterday.
They said government should come to the institution’s rescue.
The university relies heavily on government subvention to sustain itself, something the legislators believe should now change.
Siphocosini MP, Mduduzi Matsebula, suggested that this was time for government to bailout UNESWA and enquired when this could happen.
Matsebula further stated that UNESWA did not only need to be bailed out but also needed to have a way of making its own money in order to sustain itself.
The legislator said there should be resource mobilisation strategies in place to help UNESWA generate money.
Regard
He wanted to know what the ministry of education and training was doing to help UNESWA in that regard.
Matsebula stressed that the time for UNESWA to come up with its own funding programmes was now.
“The institution does not have to rely only on the subvention from government because if the subvention was not reliable, the institution is bound to become insolvent, as it is now,” said Matsebula.
He further stated that the Luyengo Campus of the university had the capacity of generating its own financial resources because of the programmes it taught.
Matsebula stated that the agriculture and home economics programmes taught at the faculty of agriculture (which is based at the Luyengo Campus) could be improved to help generate money for UNESWA so that the institution became self-sufficient.
Dropped
Lobamba Lomdzala MP, Marwick Khumalo, said the education standard at UNESWA had dropped.
According to Khumalo, the research department was no longer the credible source of information it used to be.
He said it had become clear that UNESWA was going down and it was a pity because if such an institution went down, the country’s education system would be severely compromised.
Khumalo said the Minister of Education and Training, Lady Howard-Mabuza, could not be blamed for the mess that UNESWA found itself in.
However, he said the minister was wrong in protecting the people who were responsible for making UNESWA to be what it was.
He said the minister would be the one in trouble for protecting the individuals who were responsible for messing up UNESWA, instead of exposing them so that they could be dealt with.
Helping
Khumalo said by exposing those destroying the institution, the minister would be helping give a clear picture of the state of education, not only at the institution, but also in the country.
Minister Howard-Mabuza requested to respond in writing.
However, she said the biggest challenge of her ministry was the lack of resources, especially financial.
She said she wished that the problems engulfing her ministry, particularly UNESWA, would be sorted as fast as possible but that could not be the case because of lack of money. She said before being minister of education, she also could not understand why the problems were not solved within the ministry.
However, when she was at the helm, it became clear to her that the biggest challenge was the lack of funds, which made it difficult for her to solve the problems.
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