GOVT NEEDS E151.9M FOR FPE AFTER EU EXIT

MBABANE – Government needs E151.9 million for 592 primary schools countrywide this year.

This amount is needed for Free Primary Education (FPE) following the European Union’s (EU) cutting of the umbilical cord after it had been sponsoring the programme since its infancy. The EU stopped funding FPE last year.

For eight years, the EU had thrown a lifeline of about E140 million before leaving government to take full responsibility of FPE funding. This effectively means the EU paid approximately E17.5 million per year.
While the EU was on board, government paid for six classes, depending on the number of streams each school had.

The country, according to the education and data policy centre, has a total of 330 000 pupils.
These pupils are enrolled in primary and secondary education.

Pupils

Of these pupils, about 240 000 (73 per cent) are enrolled in primary education. With this number of pupils in primary school, government pays a minimum of E560 per pupil.
When this figure is multiplied by the 240 000 pupils estimated to be annually enrolled in primary schools, it translates to an expenditure of about E134.4 million.

This amount is paid annually for the pupils to the 592 primary schools and it excludes the E17.5 million paid by the EU before it stopped supporting the programme.
As the EU has terminated its sponsorship of the programme, government has been placed in a predicament. This, according to the Minister of Education and Training, Lady Mabuza, is because pupils cannot be left lying idle at home due to lack of sponsorship.

Mabuza said government was yet to discuss the way forward on how to fund the programme in the absence of the EU sponsorship.
withdrawing

However, she said in the interim, the State would take over the funding of the programme in the infancy stages.
“We’ve not engaged on the issue much but the EU stated that they were withdrawing last year and government has to take over,” Mabuza said.
This expenditure to be incurred by government following the decision by the trade bloc to stop its funding under the Support to Education and Training (SET) Programme, comes at the backdrop of another ludicrous spending that was accumulated in 46 days by the ministry.

The ministry had to put aside over E40 million to cover the writing of external examinations following that teachers were engaged in activities that kept them away from their workstations.
This was at the height of an impasse between government and members of the Swaziland National Association of Teachers (SNAT) over the cost-of-living-adjustment (CoLA) demand.
The ministry roped in security personnel to guard and ferry examination papers to the offices of regional education officers (REOs) in fear of any interference against the exams.

vehicles

In doing so, the ministry also leased 400 vehicles from Woodford Car Hire to assist in the execution of the aforementioned duties.
Also, this expenditure comes at a time when government has failed to fund CoLA as demanded by civil servants.

This 6.5 per cent CoLA demand, which unions are adamant will render the country ungovernable come January 28, needs a budget of E54.5 million per month, which translates to E654.4 million per year.
If it could eventually be afforded to the about 44 000 civil servants, the wage bill can balloon to E9 billion per year.

Currently, the country’s wage bill is E8.39 billion per year and is about 15 per cent of the Gross Domestic Product of E57.2 billion (US$4.4 billion) as per figures contained in the International Monetary Fund (IMF) website.
As if that it not enough, government is in the interim failing to cope with its day-to-day obligations, which include buying electricity units, paying outstanding water bills and other utilities.

This was witnessed at the national broadcaster, Eswatini Broadcasting and Information Services (EBIS) where the Eswatini Electricity Company (EEC) gave an ultimatum to the EBIS management to either pay the outstanding bill or face termination of power.

Further, the Swaziland Democratic Nurses Union (SWADNU) has been vocal about the lack of medical supplies and equipment at national health centres, citing that over 20 types of drugs were not available.

Health

A week ago, this publication reported that the Intensive Care Unit (ICU) was a threat to the health of patients seeking medical help at the Mbabane Government Hospital.
One of the reasons, this publication has gathered, was failure by government to ensure that the various departments have the required equipment to ensure that patients get the best treatment.
government is also indebted to its suppliers to the tune of over E3.68 billion which has coerced some entities to close shop, rendering a number of employees in the private sector jobless.

Meanwhile, the EU came to support the FPE programme in 2010 when government took the giant step to pay school fees for all children in the primary education sector as per the requirement of the Constitution.

Initially, the EU had anticipated to fund the programme through grants for all primary school pupils until 2016, however, after the initial period elapsed, the financial support was extended for a further two years, which lapsed at the end of 2018.
The education sector in the last budget presented by then Minister of Finance Martin Dlamini was E3.3 billion. Almost invariably, the education and training sector gets a larger share of the budget.
This was witnessed even during the 2011/2012 financial meltdown experienced by the country.

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