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WHEN MEDIOCRITY IS REWARDED

19/10/2017 04:51:00 By Vusi Kunene

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I usually hear from religious leaders of this country that Swaziland is the pulpit of Africa and have never thought it can go to these lengths. The bible states it will be taken away from those with little and given to those with more. So I have witnessed this in my country even before getting to the Judgment seat where we are all going per my Sunday school teacher.

I was thinking who will ever save the Swazis from those looting the public funds? My worry is that those who we trust could be doing the same as the ones that are looting the funds. I thought it was not true that certain senior government officials have got exorbitant salary raise but I nearly collapsed when I heard that the Principal Secretary loSilwane has confirmed that indeed there was a salary raise.

The very same Silwane is sitting in the Joint Negotiation Forum and tells other civil servants who are getting far less than what the senior officers, that there is no money for their salary raise.
Where on earth can you have a raise of more than your salary? I think these officials should know that to say siyinqaba means we are the fortress not that we are just too different to others. I think they give the latter interpretation of the word in doing what has never been heard of anywhere in the world.

Government is out saying they are implementing the recommendations by the IMF in not raising salaries but they reward the senior officers. For what? Are they rewarded for the lack of drugs in hospitals? Are they rewarded for the death of people from malaria? Are they rewarded for the lack of food in schools? Are they rewarded for not giving students their allowances?
Are they rewarded for not adding old people into the system so that they access their old age benefits? Are they rewarded for not taking care of our roads? What are they rewarded for because to me it seems these people are failing in their jobs? Is that what we reward them for?

Audacity

The Principal Secretary of the Ministry of Public Service even has the audacity to tell the world that they have saved the money. As it is money they have saved, they can then give it as a gift to anyone they chose to give. Why is this money not given to the Head of Departments (HOD) in schools who have even taken government to court for the same reason as that advanced by Silwane? HOD’s were saying the salary raise they got was not consummate to their position and government went to court to say they have no money to give to these people. But there is money now to give to senior officials in government. Why are the people with the same grievances treated differently when we have a Constitution which speaks of equality in all spheres?

I would have loved to hear someone questioning this but I have no hope that there is anyone who can do this. The reason I do not have hope is that even those who are supposed to question corrupt act have their hands in the cookie jar. They are also giving money to themselves that they are not supposed to. Parliament which is supposed to question this is also not clean when it comes to such shenanigans. So if they can raise their voice they will also be asked on what they themselves did. Who will forget that when civil servants got their dvuladvula, parliamentarians gave themselves even more?

How can they now raise a voice when others are also looting at public funds because they did the same thing? They are also failing in their duties but they rewarded themselves. So for me we are prone to rewarding mediocrity than excellence.
We are told that Cabinet did approve such rewards and you just wonder why the double standards. Is Cabinet aware that even the cleaners employed by government dream of having a balanced meal every day. They dream of owning that house which has a bathroom. They dream of driving that car that the senior government officials are driving. But all these and more will remain just that, a dream, by the look of things.

I think it is high time that we have a government that is accountable to the people. A government that is answerable to the people. Have government officials who have the interest of the people other than those lining their pockets from the public funds. A Cabinet that will not sing praises to people who do not care about other people but are quick to defend when they reward mediocrity. I do not think officials like those of the Ministry of Health deserve such a handshake when the public is not getting health assistance. If only the money was used to purchase drugs then we would reward that official and not mediocrity as it is happening now.