Africa-Press – Eswatini. A technical glitch almost resulted in E760 being deducted from the salaries of all civil servants.
The error was detected when the Treasury Department, under the Ministry of Finance, was running this month’s salaries. This was in preparation for remunerating civil servants who are paid from the 20th of each calendar month. It is worth noting that there are about 45 000 employees in the civil service. According to sources, the E760 deduction was meant for politicians. The insiders claimed that the deductions were for the remuneration of helpers recruited by the politicians during their 60-month tenure in office.
Housekeepers
According to Finance Circular No.2 of 2023, those entitled to housekeepers are: The prime minister, deputy prime minister, presiding officers, ministers, attorney general and regional administrators. According to Article 3.5 of Finance Circular No.2 of 2023, the household assistants are assigned to the official residences for duties related to the maintenance and the upkeep of official residences.
Meanwhile, the Ministry of Finance Communications Officer, Setsabile Dlamini, confirmed that there was a technical glitch and it was being addressed. Dlamini said as the technical glitch was being rectified, no civil servants would be affected and they would be paid as usual.
This is not the first time that the Treasury Department experienced technical glitches when running civil servants’ remuneration as in August 2022, members of the Umbutfo Eswatini Defence Force (UEDF) almost missed out on the backpay to be enjoyed by un-unionised civil servants. The UEDF personnel were part of the civil servants who qualified for the three per cent cost-of-living adjustment (CoLA) and once-off payment of one per cent of their annual basic salary, which they were to receive at the time.
In this instance, the Treasury Department, when computing the salaries for un-unionised civil servants had missed backdating their three per cent CoLA to April 2022 but had, however, awarded them the once-off payment of one per cent of their annual basic salary.
The sources said the technical glitch was discovered during a thorough check on the remuneration of those who were to benefit from the collective agreement between the Government Negotiation Team (GNT) and Eswatini Principals Association (EPA), which led to the pronouncement of the aforesaid adjustments.
It was claimed that the omission of the back paying of the members of the army was brought by the fact that for the first time, the employer had to sift through civil servants as not all were being awarded the CoLA and one per cent of their annual basic salary.
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