By Zweli Martin Dlamini
Africa-Press – Eswatini. The standard of living in this country has been reduced such that, it’s even hard to imagine how emaSwati including civil servants are surviving with the ‘peanuts’ paid by the eSwatini Government disguised as salaries.
Junior police,Correctional Services and soldiers are paid around ten thousand Rands(R10,000.00) as a gross salary, this amount is drastically reduced by Pay as You Earn(PAYE) to around eight thousand Rands(R8,000.00).
Worth-noting, it now costs around four thousand Rands(R4000.00) to buy food, pay water electricity and water for a family or three(3) people being husband, wife and one child amid the ever escalating costs of basic commodities.
After the loans,Pension Fund, Provident Fund and other deductions, some civil servants including security officers earn around two thousand Rands(R2000.00) per-month and the struggle of life has forced them to secure loans with shylocks.
In the midst of these financial struggles, we have a Government that is proposing to increase electricity and water while salaries remain stagnant, this is clearly an act of oppression with intend to push emaSwati deeper into poverty.
But this week, the Supreme Court ruled in favour of junior police and Correctional Services officers and Government is expecting to respect the court order and pay these junior security officers their salary increment including a back-pay dating back to 2014.
The judgement of the Supreme Court reversed an act of injustice against the security officers, members of the Executive Command awarded themselves a salary increment and shared the millions among themselves.
As a result, junior police and Correctional Services officers have been living in poverty for the past ten(10) years and whenever they try to demand their money, “they are always reminded about an oath of Office”.
It’s a worse form of oppression to remind security officers about an oath, they never took an oath to tolerate injustice, corruption and refrain from demanding what is due to them.
Even though we are busy with the junior police and Correctional Services officers salary increment under Phase two(2), Government must ensure that the ongoing re-structuring conducted by a Consultant changes the lives of the civil servants for the better.
But apart from that, soldiers are also facing similar financial challenges, they need a salary increment and Government can afford to award all civil servants including security officers a salary increment.
We have money in this country that is sufficient to benefit all the citizens, public funds must be shared for the benefit of all emaSwati not only King Mswati and his royal family.
Junior police officers, Correctional Services, soldiers and all civil servants must never be mislead that there’s no money in this country, we can’t have a King and his loyalists living in luxury with public funds while emaSwati including civil servants struggle to afford a decent meal.
We can’t have civil servants who are financially broke languishing in poverty,there’s money including minerals in this country and that money must improve the lives of the people.
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