SIKHANYISO LEAVE: SPLM SENDS LETTER OF DEMAND

MANZINI – The demand to see the Minister of ICT, Princess Sikhanyiso, paying back the money which she earned while on extended maternity leave has been forwarded to government.

Despite the public apology by the minister, the Swaziland People’s Liberation Movement (SPLM) has sent letters to the offices of the Attorney General (AG), Prime Minister (PM), Ministry of Finance, Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) and Government Spokesperson. The letters are titled; Letter of demand for the initiation of processes to recover money paid to Information Technology and Communications (ITC) Minister Princess Sikhanyiso as salary when she was on ‘unlawful’ protracted maternity leave with full pay (sic).

The letters were signed by the political party’s President, Vusi Shongwe. He said he wrote it on behalf of himself and as part of a collective, the SPLM, for which he was a leader (as empowered by the Constitution of Eswatini, Chapter three; protection and promotion of fundamental rights and freedoms, protection of freedom of assembly and association and protection of the freedom of expression).

He said they were seeking the office of the AG, as the custodian of the Constitution of the Kingdom of  Eswatini, that it should institute processes that would  compel the minister to repay all the monies she was paid while she was on an ‘unlawful’ and protracted maternity leave. The political movement said the allegedly unlawfully begotten salary by the minister was in the region of plus or minus E888 000. In the letters, they requested the Ministry of Finance to calculate the exact amount that she has to repay.

They added that the letters were also empowered by all laws of the Kingdom of Eswatini that governed and regulated the protocols of maternity leave. The acting PM,  Themba Masuku, being the minister’s principal at Cabinet, has been copied in this letter. “We call upon him (acting PM) to ensure that this money is recovered and paid back by the minister. To be fair, the minister herself has also been copied the letter by virtue of being the first ‘respondent’ in the matter,” reads part of the letters. They also referred to the minister’s comments and declarations which she made at the Sibaya People’s Parliament in 2018, where she said people who were found to be in the wrong should be dealt with and held accountable.

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