Africa-Press – Eswatini. There is an uproar among employers and employees of textile firms following the Eswatini National Provident Fund’s (ENPF) decision to source its 2023 Imbube Marathon T-shirts from China.
In the past, the T-shirts were produced by local textile factories. The Imbube Marathon was launched by His Majesty King Mswati III in July 2015, at Mavuso Trade and Exhibition Centre, when he was officially opening the E100 million ENPF Sivuno Building in Manzini. The marathon is an annual event and is sponsored by ENPF. At its inception, the sponsorship was E0.5 million. According to a source from the textile sector, who is close to the matter, all along, ENPF had been reinvesting its members’ (workers) monies locally (textile and apparel industry), through purchasing the T-shirts for the marathon. The source said this made everyone (both employers and employees) proud of the marathon and saw the value for their money (contributions to ENPF).
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At the same time, this contributed positively to the economy as it promoted the circulation of money within the country and the textile industry’s contribution to the country’s gross domestic product (GDP), among others. However, the source said when the fund hosted the last marathon before the outbreak of COVID-19 in 2019, it sourced its T-shirts from China, which means this is the second order for the T-shirts in a row to be placed overseas. By so doing, the source said some of the textile and apparel sector employers and employees were disappointed with the decision by the fund. They said they were looking up to working on the order of this year’s Imbube Marathon T-shirts, because they needed every order they could get in order to keep the about 22 000 people employed by the industry.
The source said the fund usually purchased between 2 000 and 3 000 T-shirts for the marathon and in terms of cost, they amounted to over E150 000 on average. “The workers used to be so proud to see members of the royal family, government officials and businesspeople partaking in the marathon while wearing T-shirts produced by them – proudly made in Eswatini,” the source said. He added that the companies were crying foul because they were never engaged before the decision was made. He said their argument was that if they had been engaged, there were a number of things that they could have put on the table as part of the offer and one of them was to have textile and apparel sector stalls next to water points to market themselves. With such agreements, he said as stakeholders, they would feel being part of the Imbube Marathon.
Some of the stakeholders who have an interest in the matter said their main concern was that what the ENPF used to do, by buying the Imbube Marathon T-shirts locally, was in line with the King and government’s call for emaSwati to support each other, trade among themselves and keep up with the adage that ‘charity begins at home’. They said they learnt with shock that this year, ENPF had placed an order for the Imbube Marathon T-shirts overseas – China to be specific. Another concern, which they raised, was that during such times, when the country was facing economic setbacks and attempts were being made to recover from COVID-19, June/July 2021 civil unrest and Russia/Ukraine war effects, a public enterprise, which is responsible for collecting and keeping workers’ monies, chose not to reinvest it in its members (labour force) but in an international company.
On top of that, they said ENPF usually ordered about 3 000 T-shirts, but at one instance, it ordered about 2 000 and after registration, it needed 500 extra T-shirts and a local textile factory managed to produce the T-shirts overnight. They wondered what instrument the fund used to gauge how many T-shirts it should order from China because the registration process was yet to be opened. “It is possible that it could order T-shirts that would be less or more than the people who will register for the marathon. The question is; should there be a shortage of the T-shirts, will it manage to get extra ones over night from China?” they asked. They argued that according to their analysis, T-shirts were among the high costing items needed for the marathon, yet they were sourced from overseas. They said water for the athletes was sponsored by various companies who provided it at the water points.
Moreover, they said they would seek an audience with the fund through their mother body, Business Eswatini, to address the matter. ENPF is a retirement benefit savings scheme that was established in 1974 by King Sobhuza II. Its core business is governed by the King’s Order and Council No. 23 of 1974, which is to give its members (workers) peace of mind about their financial security after retirement. All employers of labour in Eswatini are required by law to become contributing members to the fund and should pay contribution for every eligible staff member. The employee’s share is deducted from his/her salary on a monthly basis, which means the fund has been trusted to hold the workers’ funds, for their use after retirement.
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