NO LEAVE OF ABSENCE FOR ELECTIONS FOR CIVIL SERVANTS

MBABANE – Caught between a rock and a hard place.

Civil servants have to decide between completely resigning from employment or continue working while pursuing their political dreams. In the past, as soon as nominees were chosen, civil servants would be allowed to take leave of absence after being nominated. This allowed them to have time to campaign for their political positions such as bucopho, indvuna yenkhundla or even Member of Parliament (MP).

Ordered

This was the case in the previous general elections, including in 2018. This year, the country is to hold the much-anticipated national exercise again and in about two weeks, nominees will take part in the first phase of elections, known as primary elections. This will then be followed by secondary elections. Eswatini’s elections are different from how those of many countries, where individual candidates are selected based on parties they represent. However, constitutionally, Eswatini does not allow political parties during elections and candidates are elected based on individual merit, first at their chiefdom level. Unlike in the past, this time around, all civil servants have been ordered to be at work and are not allowed to take leave of absence. Under leave of absence, civil servants are not paid salaries but this time, the government has not stopped the salaries and instead ordered the civil servants to continue working.

Displeasure

This is contained in a memo dated July 28, 2023, issued by the Ministry of Public Service. Some civil servants have been left furious with these developments, while others are said not to be aware that they are not suppose to be away from work while campaigning for the political positions.
The Principal Secretary (PS) in the ministry, Sipho Tsabedze, confirmed the memo, pointing out that it applied to all civil servants. This was after he was contacted following concerns from civil servants, who expressed displeasure that they were not allowed to take leave of absence by the relevant authorities in the various work stations. Tsabedze said all the civil servants who had been nominated were affected by this memo. He said this was because they were still getting paid and for that reason needed to be at work.

Nominated

The PS stated that civil servants who were nominated to stand in the 2023 General Elections were expected to be at work until they won the elections.
He said constitutionally, only politicians who were civil servants were allowed to take absence of leave. Tsabedze said for now, the nominees were not politicians and that if they were civil servants, they did not qualify for leave of absence until the time they won the elections and also made their oaths to serve. He said winning the elections was not just enough but that they should also make the required oath to serve.

Smeared

“For now, they are like a woman who has not been smeared with red okra. Even if lobola is paid for one, she is not a wife until the red okra is smeared,” said Tsabedze. He also added that for now, the nominees were still ‘gambling’ as they could win, or may not do so. Tsabedze also revealed that even the outgoing politicians such as MPs, tindvuna tetinkhundla and bucopho were still getting paid. He said it would be unfair to say that civil servants, who wanted to stand for elections, should go on leave of absence and not get paid when the other outgoing politicians were still getting paid.
He revealed that the only time their salaries would be stopped was if they had won the elections and reached the stages where they made oath to serve the country. “For now, they are not politicians,” said Tsabedze adding that they were still ordinary civil servants. Some civil servants are of the view that this would work to their advantage. They said this was because some of them were able to apply for leave and still be able to earn their salaries.

Campaigning

“In the past, it meant that you had to lose your salary while campaigning,” one said. He also said it would give an equal advantage for others who did not have enough money for campaigning and relied purely on their salaries. Also, some of the police officers said they did not mind being at work because they knew that their duty called for them to work 24 hours a day. “We can be called at any time just like it was during the unrest,” said a police officer. It was also gathered that even the warders were called yesterday to be informed of the situation. This is according to some warders who were nominated for elections. The Public Relations Officer (PRO) for His Majesty’s Correctional Services (HMCS) could not be reached for comment.

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