Times Of Swaziland: CITIZENSHIP BOARD MEMBERS PAY BACK E26 000 ‘SITTING’ ALLOWANCES

CITIZENSHIP BOARD MEMBERS PAY BACK E26 000 ‘SITTING’ ALLOWANCES
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 BY SIBONGILE SUKATI on 05/05/2017 03:00:00


LOBAMBA – Some members of the Citizenship Board have started repaying their
E26 000 debt to government.
These are monies they had claimed as sitting allowances even though they had not
attended the meetings.
This was revealed by Principal Secretary in the Ministry of Home Affairs Anthony
Masilela.
However, he failed to state how much had been repaid by the members of the Board
and as a result, Chairperson of the PAC MP Thuli Dladla gave them until the end
of business today to forward the breakdown of the repayments.
Masilela said some the Board members who claimed the sitting allowances were
advised to pay back that money.
“Some of them have already paid in full, some are still paying and some have
not yet started paying, but the ministry reminds them now and again to pay,”
said Masilela.
He said he was not worried about recovering the full amount from the members as
he knew when their term of office would elapse.
Masilela said if they failed to voluntarily pay then he would be able to deduct
the outstanding amount from their allowances.
He said in order to avoid a recurrence of the Board members claiming money they
had not worked for the ministry had since taken the Board to a one-week
workshop, which was held at SIMPA in Matsapha from November 14-18, 2016.
He said a proper record of attendance was now in place to avoid unauthentic
claims by the Board members. Masilela said a minute book was now in place to
capture all minutes during meetings of the Board.
On another note, the ministry was also found to have overspent on fuel by E4.7
million.