ASSET SEIZURE LEGISLATION TO END CORRUPTION

EZULWINI – ‘Help us get back our money amassed illegally through enactment of legislation to provide for asset seizure’.

This is the clear message which has been relayed by the multi-billion Emalangeni retirement and pension funds industry to the newly-sworn Prime Minister Ambrose Dlamini and yet to be appointed Cabinet ministers.

Financial Services Regulatory Authority (FSRA) Chief Executive Officer (CEO), Sandile Dlamini said the onus of the newly-appointed and elected officials together with Legislature, would be to devise a comprehensive formula or strategy that would see into that assets accumulated by corrupt means gets taken back to where they genuinely belong.

“What will be important is not just to incarcerate the culprits but recover the assets they gained through corrupt means,” Dlamini advised during the Eswatini Retirement Funds breakfast meeting convened at the Royal Swazi Spa Gigi’s Restaurant yesterday.

Dlamini recalled that a majority of presentations made during the People’s Parliament (Sibaya) convened last week, were centred on combating corruption. He said this showed that there was a strong willingness by senior officials in high echelons of power to minimise the negatives of this social ill, especially on the economy, which was a step in the right direction.

“We are ecstatic that a promising PM has been appointed and confident that they will drive the economy towards the right direction,” Dlamini emphasised.
Without substantiating his allegations, the CEO said there had been enormous land which had been taken away through corrupt practices since the kingdom gained independence from British colonialism in 1968, which ought to be brought back to its rightful owners.

Therefore, providing another valid reason why asset forfeiture would work a great deal in terms of reviving the economy through ‘giving back to Ceaser what belongs to Ceaser.’
“The country suffers a double loss through corruption. We lose out on tax and ill gotten wealth which provides all the reason to eliminate corruption in order to bring about economic transformation,” Dlamini stated.

Further, Dlamini said focus also ought to be given to eliminating loopholes in the procurement system. He claimed that overpricing was rife, especially in the utilisation of public funds which should come to an end.
Government spends nearly E10 billion of public funds in procurement of goods and services without following the laid down procedure.  

Scathing

Swaziland Public Procurement Regulatory Agency (SPPRA) recently made this scathing revelation on how public funds get used by parastatals and central government procures goods and services without adhering to the Public Procurement Act of 2011, especially section 45 which informs processes how a tender should be issued and granted.

SPPRA scting Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Musa Sikhondze, decried the manner in which public funds were being used up without adhering to the act.
He mentioned that parastatals such as the Swaziland Revenue Authority (SRA) fully adhered to the act but there remained a lot of entities that breach the law almost on a daily basis.

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