MANGOLOLO MEMBER TEACHER CHUCKED OUT OF MEET

MANZINI – A SNAT member, who is also an executive constituent of Mangololo Eswatini, was chucked out of the teachers’ association workshop.

SNAT is the Swaziland National Association of Teachers – a teachers’ union that is said to be striving to improve the professional socio-economic status of teachers, enhance collective bargaining for teachers and encourage maximum participation and dynamic provision of quality education to the learner and emaSwati at large. On the other hand, Mangololo Eswatini is a movement against the idea of multiparties and it was formed in August this year following the political unrest in the kingdom wherein some citizens were calling for political reforms and a new political dispensation.

Representative

The teacher, who is a SNAT representative for the Manzini Branch at Lozitha Primary School and also the organising secretary of Mangololo, is Sikelela Mhlanga. He was part of a workshop held at the SNAT Centre. According to impeccable sources, when Mhlanga entered the hall where the workshop was being held, some members of his branch started singing a political song. However, as they sang, it was gathered that they altered the lyrics to target Mhlanga. Seeing that this was happening, it was gathered that a committee member of the Manzini Branch called him out of the meeting as they noted that the situation would get out of hand. Mhlanga also confirmed that he was part of the meeting. However, he said some members of his branch were not happy with his affiliation with Mangololo.

The organising secretary said this took him by surprise as he did not expect his involvement with Mangololo to clash with SNAT. He said his understanding was that democracy was anchored around freedom of people to choose from a variety. Following this incident, Mhlanga said: “I’m yet to decide my future with SNAT as I was of the view that these organisations don’t clash. There are people who are part of political parties and they are not discriminated against.”
On the other hand, Chairman of the Manzini Branch Muzi Mkhontfo confirmed the incident. He said they had to remove Mhlanga from the branch’s WhatsApp  group due to the nature of some unkind words that were being directed at him. “We tried to explain to the members to be as democratic as possible,” Mkhontfo said.

Workshop

He said Mhlanga ended up being offered transport fare as he could not proceed in partaking in the workshop. To this development, Spokesperson of Mangololo Eswatini Gcina Dlamini said SNAT should be clear on whether they are a political party or a teachers’ association. He said this would assist in guiding their member in leaving the association if they were a political party. Dlamini said their organising secretary was a teacher and he was of the view that SNAT was a teachers’ association.

Meanwhile, SNAT President Mbongwa Dlamini said the association was not a political party.  “SNAT is a democratic organisation and we expect our members to support democratic principles.” He said the association did not mind whether their members being affiliated with any organisation as long as it supported their basic principles – democracy. Mbongwa said anyone who supported something that was against democratic principles was against SNAT.

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