FINANCE CIRCULAR WILL BE TELL-TALE SIGN

THE much awaited Finance Circular will settle some scores between government and public sector unions. More than settling scores, the outcome of the new circular will be more revealing on government’s real commitment to tightening spending from the G-wallet, and who is supposed to be affected by all the proposed fiscal consolidation and cuts on spending.

There is a commission working on the infamous Finance Circular No. 2 of 2013, which provides a remuneration framework for Eswatini’s parliamentarians/politicians. This is the elaborate 19-page policy document that guarantees Eswatini’s politicians the lavish lifestyles they enjoy at the back of all emaSwati who contribute to the G-wallet.

The policy gets reviewed every five years, ensuring that the salary and benefit packages of our politicians are always kept up-to-date so that each new Parliament gets even more cushy-comfortable in terms of their basic salary, pension, medical aid, leave allowances, other benefits and reimbursive allowances. Some of the top politicians get even more comfortable as their residence, security, household assistance and support staff get catered for by the ever ballooning wage bill. If you haven’t had a chance to look up this document just too get a sense of how good it is to be a politician in Eswatini, just simply Google Finance Circular No. 2 of 2013, and you too might be tempted to run for a seat in Parliament in the next round of elections.

Our politicians leave nothing to chance/no stone unturned when it comes to their employment benefits and just how much more luxurious their lives can get every new Parliament term.

At the same time, when our politicians get even fatter pay cheques, parastatal executives also get a political standing to increase their salaries and benefits as they deem fit. One would think that the fattening behaviour would trickle from the top going all the way down to the general public scraping floors at the bottom where it is much needed. But no, there is just too many of us down here too feed, and after all, we are not that important, we only feature when it is time to pay tax.

The truth of the matter, though, is that inflation – or the cost of living – affects all emaSwati, even much worse for the rest of us at the bottom of the economic ladder, who have to pay everything out of our pockets than to depend on elaborate employment benefits to take care of us. Last we heard of dvuladvula for civil servants was in 2016, which catered for the cost of living at that time. Unfortunately, inflation is an annual evil and it is now 2019 and civil servants want an adjustment to their salaries so that they can be better off given the ever rising cost of living in Eswatini.

To that effect, government insists that there is no money, and that it can only afford a meagre three per cent in 2020/2021. What about backpays to 2016? Giving in to public sector unions’ demands would necessitate retrenching some civil servants and cutting salary levels for some notches. But whether there is money or no money, this is the problem of the ballooning number of civil servants that government has become mother-hen to.

If government insists on employing more and more people that it really does not need, then it has to cater for employment terms such as cost-of-living adjustments because that becomes part of the deal.

The real pickle that government finds itself in is that politicians cannot wait to see what the new circular has on offer, while on the other side, government is telling public sector unions to forget and get lost. Will the commission recommend a freeze on politicians’ salaries until 2020/2021, to even the scales between all levels of the public sector ladder? I doubt the new parliamentarians will be willing to make do with what is already a well above average salary and an endless list of benefits.

Our politicians have turned Parliament into a fattening ranch and have forgotten about their sole mandate which is to ensure that government’s policies and laws improve the wellbeing of all emaSwati. After all, our departed prime minister rose to a shiny pedestal that secured riches for him and his family only. To date, the rest of us watch in awe as his estate/family exchanges tenders, land, jobs, and so on and so forth.

When the public sector unions took to the streets to demand the peanuts that were owed to them, he crushed them to dust. Can we not follow on the same old good-for-nothing path? Let us not be quick to forget the pathological behaviour that brought us where we are today: in a dying economy and a cash-strapped government that has no proper companies and industries to save the situation!

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