MINISTER NEAL REVEALS CORRUPTION HAS DECLINED

PIGG’S PEAK – Corruption is on the decrease as government exposes everything through internal investigations and forensic audits.

Minister of Finance Neal Rijkenberg said this when he was sought to establish what his portfolio was doing to eradicate wasteful expenditure and corruption. The minister said as much as it might come across to the man on the street that corruption was on the rise, it was in fact being exposed within government machinery. Rijkenberg said this brought a decline as the perpetrators and their shenanigans were exposed by the investigations. “Government is exposing it regularly and this is a season we have got to go through in order to get our house in order. Before this was not happening, the amount of transparency by government towards corruption is setting the country on good footing,” he said.

Exposed

The minister said there were limited chances of corrupt individuals engaging in their shenanigans without being exposed. This publication had asked Rijkenberg what strategies the ministry implemented to assist in eradicating corruption compared to the yesteryears when it was rampant in government. The minister was also asked what percentage of wasteful expenditures and corruption had declined when compared to 2018, when he assumed office as the Finance minister. He said investigating the Phalala Medical Referral Fund, the closure of the Central Transport Administration (CTA) Trading Account and the termination of open tenders in government had saved taxpayers millions of Emalangeni.

Corruption

Rijkenberg said these are some of the austerity measures employed by government to thwart corruption. According to submissions during the People’s Parliament (Sibaya) in 2023, one of the biggest challenges the country faced was corruption, as it drained the resources that could be channelled to initiatives set to benefit the lives of the citizenry. The taxpayer, according to Rijkenberg, has saved over E300 million at the CTA. This, among other things, was through the suspension of the trading account of the department within the Ministry of Public Works and Transport, which had been endlessly receiving funding but failed to deliver services.

The CTA’s core functions include purchasing, maintaining and disposing of government vehicles and other related equipment, as well as providing fuel for government vehicles. It also rents vehicles for government ministries and departments. This department has five workshop facilities spread across the country and they are located in Mbabane, Matsapha, Nhlangano, Pigg’s Peak and Siteki. For the efficiency of government machinery through the provision of transport, the CTA has been responsible for a fleet of about 3 000 vehicles, ranging from motor cycles, sedans, LDVs, trucks and tractors, to heavy specialised construction motorised equipment. Despite these responsibilities, the shortage of transport in ministries was rampant, such that government ended up paying millions of Emalangeni for renting vehicles.

Missing

The shortage was said to be caused by a shortage of automobile parts, which were, however, said to be paid for or ordered by government. These spare parts would supposedly go missing at the department, as they were allegedly stolen by some of the workers. In 2020, this publication reported that the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) shockingly found car parts in personal lockers used by some mechanics and other employees of the CTA in Mbabane. In dealing with the supposed corruption, government engaged in a study to establish its fleet size and the viability of the fuel depots at the various CTA stations.

This was subsequent to stopping the trading account of the department in 2020. Also, government has moved to procure its fleet through government fleet leasing and financing, which will cut off the need for maintaining the vehicles. In addition to this, government, through the Ministry of Finance, Ministry of Public Works and Transport and the Office of the Attorney General, Sifiso Mashampu Khumalo, has developed water-tight contracts for capital projects.This, it has been established, has led to capital projects costing the exact amount allocated for that particular initiative.  It is worth noting that in previous years, a number of capital projects had open tenders, which resulted in their costs ballooning to triple or more than the amount they were initially envisaged to cost.

Projects

Among these projects was the initial construction of the 42.5km Sicunusa-Nhlangano Public Road project, which started in July 2013 and resulted in government spending E576 101 574.86 before its construction was suspended, while the road was 68 per cent complete. Cumulatively, the construction of the road ended up costing E1.2 billion as a new tender of E647 378 644 was awarded to complete the road linking Sicunusa and Nhlangano, as well as Gege Border Post. It was completed a decade after its construction started. Initially, it had been envisaged to be completed in July 2017; however, due to alleged anomalies in the initial construction, where it was purported that government was losing E5 million per month, it ended up being completed in May 2024. It is worth noting that the new contractor, Inyatsi Construction, took just over two years to complete its construction.

Rijkenberg, when sought for comment on what was being done to thwart corruption and/or limit government expenditure, said: “The capital projects government has started in recent years are limited to the budget as government since 2018, has re-measurable contracts to lump sum contracts. We can’t say the regional style of contracting was really corruption, but it tended to cost government four times or more than the initial price.”

According to the Construction Library, re-measurable contracts, otherwise known as measurement contracts or unit price contracts, is when payment is made against an agreed schedule of rates, which are done each month and a valuation of work is undertaken using the agreed schedule of rates and site measurements. It also states that a lump sum contract provides a fixed price for completing a construction project and it is also called a stipulated sum contract.  It is said this type of construction agreement provides simplicity for both owners and contractors, and it is often used for projects with a clear scope of work.

Contracts

Meanwhile, Rijkenberg said the alteration in the contracts extended to service providers had saved government millions of Emalangeni. He said the same applied to clamping down on the use of the Phalala Medical Referral Fund, which was seemingly being abused. To date, Rijkenberg said over E100 million has been saved. This publication has extensively reported about purported corruption through the use of the fund and, as such, resulting in a crackdown emanating from the reports and substantiated by various Financial Audit Reports on the Consolidated Government Accounts of the Kingdom of Eswatini for various financial years, compiled by the auditor general (AG).

This resulted in government suspending the account and only benefitting children. Its suspension was to scrutinise its expenditure and allocation to emaSwati in need of specialised treatment. The fund, whose objective is to assist deserving emaSwati who would otherwise not have access to specialised medical care, cannot perform its mandate due to financial constraints. Some of the specialised treatments are done locally by private doctors and/or private hospitals; however, in most instances, locals are transferred to neighbouring countries, in particular South Africa.

The debts, mainly unpaid remunerations to health service providers in and outside the kingdom, were accrued from 2008 to 2012. In the same year, about 128 patients could not benefit from the Phalala Medical Referral Fund, as the State was defrauded E9 million due to multiple payments in three years.It was once discovered by government that the State lost money due to multiple payments. It was estimated that the money lost due to this could have assisted about 128 patients (E8 990 882.92) when using the average service charge of E70 000 per patient. This was when 297 invoices were reportedly double-paid or even paid three times.

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