AG REPORTS THREATS FROM SOME BUSINESSPEOPLE, GOVT OFFICIALS

MANZINI – Auditor General (AG) Timothy Matsebula has dashed to report intimidation and death threats to law enforcers, allegedly issued by some businesspeople, along with some high ranking civil servants.

Matsebula, whose office recommended that a forensic investigation be pursued in light of the shortage of medical drugs and pharmaceutical supplies in public health facilities, is said to be receiving declarations of an intention to inflict damage, punish or hurt him. The threats are said to have connotations instructing him to supposedly desist from proceeding with the investigations relating to the causes of the drugs shortage in the country.

Insistence

These investigations were instituted at the insistence of government, through the Neal Rijkenberg-led Ministry of Finance, as means to establish the root cause of the shortage of medical supplies. Subsequent to that, Matsebula reported to government that his findings were that when projected to the population of public health facilities, the total of missing and unaccounted for pharmaceuticals amounted to E151.6 million. He also reported that during the investigation, he observed that there was missing stock of medicines and or unaccounted for pharmaceuticals amounting to E18 793 823.99 in the fiscal years ended March 31, 2021 and 2022. His findings were that there was missing stock of medical drugs amounting to E5 977 042.11, which was made up of E5 848 589.89 in the fiscal year ended  March 31, 2022 and E128 452.22 in the fiscal year ended March 31, 2021, as reported in the Trading Account.

It was said his findings further detailed that the financial statement disclosed the missing stock as a difference between physical count by the Central Medical Stores (CMS) and the Government Accounting System. Matsebula was said to have observed that pharmaceuticals amounting to E12 812 281.28, which were acquired during the financial years 2020/2021 and 2021/2022, were not accounted for. This preliminary investigation led to Funduzi Forensic Services being recruited through the Eswatini Government Tender Board. As the company engaged in its investigations, there were dissatisfactions on how the investigation was being carried out, resulting in the matter going to court.

Meanwhile, as the matter played itself in the public domain through the courts, Matsebula is said to have started receiving death threats from some senior ranking government officials and entrepreneurs supposedly ‘advising him’ that if he did not cease and desist from pursuing the investigation into the shortage of drugs, his life would be in danger.

Threatening

The communication relaying the threatening message is said to be from unknown telephone numbers to him. As such, the AG was said to have reported the matter to the police and according to sources, the matter has been referred to prosecutors as well. The threats are against the backdrop of Matsebula reporting to law enforcers that his email account, used to store valuable government information, had been hacked; which was reported by Eswatini News over the weekend. Eswatini News quoted the AG expressing suspicions that the people behind hacking his email were linked to the probe into the theft of medical drugs and pharmaceutical supplies. It was reported that Matsebula said he was alerted of the hacking by a former employee at his office, who is now based in the Republic of South Africa. The AG said a number of email accounts using his name were being used to send messages to his various colleagues. His suspicions were, according to Eswatini News, that the perpetrators were impersonating him in anticipation of getting confidential government information.

Matsebula was said to have insinuated that his office was aware that there were people who were against the probe into the theft of medical drugs and as such, his suspicions were that these people were behind the hacking of the email account. The death threats and the hacking of the AG’s email account were reported to the police just as when the Minister of Finance issued a statement relaying that on August 1, 2023, Cabinet met with Matsebula and representatives from Funduzi Forensic Services (Proprietary) Limited.

Assist

This, he said, was set to assist government satisfy itself on the engagement process of Funduzi to conduct a forensic investigation. Rijkenberg reported that Cabinet also needed to satisfy itself that recent media concerns did not have any impact on the possible outcomes of the forensic investigation, while also ensuring that the process was not tainted with illegality. Aligned to the information shared with Cabinet and his office, Rijkenberg confirmed that the engagement of Charles Kwezera, who was an independent contractor to Funduzi, was summarily terminated after the allegations of his improper and unlawful conduct were exposed. Kwezera is the same person who was accused by some CMS employees of demanding bribes, allegedly to exonerate them in the findings of the investigations.

Cops investigating intimidation, death threats towards Matsebula

MANZINI – The death threats towards the life of the Auditor General, Timothy Matsebula, are expeditiously being dealt with by the police.

Chief Police Information and Communications Officer Superintendent Phindile Vilakati said the law enforcers had received reports of the death threats and were investigating them. Vilakati said as the matter was ongoing, she could not delve into details other than to confirm that they (police officers) were investigating it. It is worth noting that Matsebula, in his proposal for a forensic investigation on the notification of suspected irregularities into the acquisition and distribution of medicines to public health facilities, underscored a crisis reported by nurses and members of the public.

There were allegations that public health facilities were without medical drugs and pharmaceutical supplies to the benefit of retail pharmacies, which some had links with personnel in the health sector. The shortage persisted despite that government in 2022 increased the budget for drugs to E1.035 billion. This was after the Minister of Finance, Neal Rijkenberg, in his 2022 budget speech, which was at the peak of the COVID-19 pandemic, said: “Government has allocated E2.42 billion to the Ministry of Health. “This translates to about E2 069 spending per capita, putting us in the top 10 per cent of health spending in Sub-Saharan Africa.” Despite the increment in resources, the challenges in public health facilities persisted, such that in the 2023/24 national budget, Rijkenberg announced that government had allocated E2.76 billion to the Ministry of Health.

Medication

In fact, despite the Ministry of Health being one of the most catered for departments, it has seen even its clients (patients) petitioning it in agitation of not being afforded medication. This played itself out at the Mbabane Government Hospital in the past weeks. The acute shortage of medical drugs and supplies in public health facilities is expected to be a thing of the past as the entire ministry’s suppliers have reportedly been paid.  Rijkenberg recently said the Ministry of Health’s suppliers, whose invoices were supplied to the Treasury Department, were 100 per cent paid. He explained that unfortunately, the Lizzie Nkosi-led Ministry of Health gave large orders to suppliers and did not process the paperwork until the order was supplied in full. 

Rijkenberg explained that suppliers of the Ministry of Health supplied three quarters of their orders and delayed delivering on the balance, which resulted in delayed payments. He said due to the principle applied by the Ministry of Health, there were delayed orders; however, there was a task team set up to aggressively deal with the supply of medical drugs and pharmaceutical supplies to all public health institutions in the country. To date, Rijkenberg said huge amounts of medicines had been supplied to the public health facilities in the last two weeks. He said the Principal Secretary (PS) in the Ministry of Health, Dr Simon Zwane, was very influential in ensuring the delivery of the medical drugs.

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