Home | News | MAGISTRATES CLAIM OVER E1M OVERTIME IN 7 MONTHS

MAGISTRATES CLAIM OVER E1M OVERTIME IN 7 MONTHS

07/01/2020 04:54:00 BY MBONGISENI NDZIMANDZE AND KWANELE DLAMINI

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MBABANE – Within a period of just seven months, magistrates claimed over E1 million in overtime payment.
The total amount claimed by the judicial officers for working on weekends is E1 173 406.59.

It is common knowledge that magistrates who work on weekends preside mostly over traffic offences, a bulk of which are drink-driving cases. Some magistrates, however, do hear others cases including rape, robbery and theft.
According to a report of claims provided to the Treasury Department, the aforementioned amount was claimed by 15 magistrates from the four regions of the country from January 2019 to July 2019.

As per the report, the highest amount that was claimed by the magistrates was a sum of E202 901.08. This amount was for claims for the month of May 2019 alone.

In July they forwarded claims which totalled E193 469.64 and in June, the amount claimed was E186 898.38. A sum of E168 720.12 was claimed in January 2019 and a claim sheet reflecting an amount of E152 181.88 was forwarded to the Treasury Department in April 2019 to process the overtime payment. The least amount that was claimed by the judicial officers was E118 206.84 and this was in March 2019.

According to the report, Manzini Principal Magistrate David Khumalo forwarded a claim of E139 089.60 which was the highest amount in the seven-month period. Among the 15 magistrates, Khumalo claimed the highest amount in a single month. In July, he forwarded a claim of E47 871.04. The aforementioned amount exceeds the claims filed by at least six magistrates over the period of seven months.

Magistrate Dumisani Magagula, as per the report, claimed the second highest amount, which was E123 305. 57, from January 2019 to July 2019.
Mbabane Principal Magistrate Fikile Nhlabatsi came third with a claim of E114 358.20. The now retired Magistrate Joseph Gumedze claimed an amount of E103 305.60 in the seven month period. Lubombo Principal- Magistrate Donald Mavuso, on the other hand forwarded a claim of E97 955.82.

least

The least amount was claimed by Manzini Magistrate Sebenzile Ndlela. Magistrate Ndlela only claimed an amount of E943.32 for the month of April 2019. The report reflects that in the preceding and subsequent months, the magistrate did not file any claim for overtime payment.
Meanwhile, the Judiciary recently issued a minute informing magistrates and other judicial officers that it would no longer process overtime claims exceeding four hours.

In essence this meant that the judicial officers will be at liberty to stop proceeding with matters that will go beyond the four hours on weekends as they will not be remunerated for working beyond those hours. The stance by the Judiciary was communicated to the judicial officers by Supreme Court Registrar Lungile Msimango, through a minute dated August 14, 2019.

The minute which was titled ‘Re: Weekend Courts’ was circulated to all principal magistrates, senior magistrates, magistrates and clerks of court.
The minute has also been forwarded to the registrar of the High Court of Eswatini, deputy registrar of the High Court, assistant registrars and the accounts departments of the High Court.

Msimango, who is the controlling officer in the Judiciary, stated that the budget committee raised concerns regarding over expenditure on item 01, being the item where salaries and overtime are paid.

“The said item reflects a negative balance which effectively means that the Judiciary will not be able to pay for overtime claims and salaries,” said the Supreme Court Registrar, who is also the Secretary of the Judicial Service Commission (JSC).
Msimango stated that it was for that reason that the Judiciary had resorted to curbing all overtime claims to a maximum of four hours per day.

Minute

In the minute, Msimango emphasised that: “Any claim in the excess of four hours shall not be processed.”
Information gathered is that for overtime a magistrate is paid at an hourly rate which depends on the amount she or he earns.

In a previous interview, one of the judicial officers who preferred anonymity said: “I understand where the controlling officer is coming from as the previous system of overtime claims was open to abuse and corrupt tendencies, however, I do not see most magistrates working on weekends now.”
Meanwhile, an independent lawyer said the decision by the Judiciary would be prejudicial to suspects who would be arrested on weekends in the event a magistrate decided not to proceed with matters beyond the stipulated four hours.

Last year it was reported that about 28 officers from the High Court were being paid overtime for moving files from the old archives to the new ones.
This was after the Principal Secretary at the Ministry of Justice and Constitutional Affairs Lorraine Hlophe wrote a letter to the Ministry of Public Service requesting that the officers be engaged to claim overtime in the alterations of the High Court building.

In the memorandum, Hlophe disclosed that the 28 officers who included the assistant registrar, clerk of courts and personal secretaries, had to work overtime since the Judiciary had hired more judges and there was currently not enough space to accommodate all of them.
She said as a result, the Judiciary had engaged the Ministry of Public Works and Transport to execute the alteration and minor renovations to the building in order to make more space.

Hlophe was quoted having said this had resulted in the Judiciary engaging the High Court staff to move the files from the old archives to the new archives and this involved the compilation of the statistics and status of each file.

Authority

She stated that they, therefore, requested the authority to claim overtime for the 28 officers who would assist in these services.
The government Establishment Circular No.8 of 2010 prescribed the Freezing of Overtime Payment to Public servants which states that prior to engaging staff to work overtime, Cabinet approval should be obtained.

Meanwhile, the Law Society of Swaziland (LSS) said it was of the view that the assertion that the over expenditure in the Judiciary was only caused by the payment of overtime claims was devoid of the truth.

In an earlier interview, Secretary General of the Law Society of Swaziland (LSS) Thulani Maseko opined that there might be other contributing factors which they were not told of.

“We are not told as to who finances trips for judges. Despite that we are stakeholders, we are not told of anything that is happening in the Judiciary but we only read about issues in the newspapers,” said Maseko.