SIMELANE FREED AFTER PAYING E30 000 FINE FOR IMPRISONMENT

MBABANE – After spending two nights in police custody, today Peter Simelane woke up in the comfort of his home.

The Eswatini Medical Aid Fund (Eswatini Med) principal officer yesterday paid the fine of E30 000 imposed on him by Judge Titus Mlangeni. This was an option to his sentence of 30 days imprisonment.

This was half of the 60 days sentence for contempt of court. The other half was suspended for a period of five years. The judge said since he could not send Eswatini Med to jail, he imposed a fine of E100 000.

The background of the dispute between EswatiniBank and Eswatini Med is the decision taken by EswatiniBank or some of its employees to abandon Eswatini Med and migrate to another medical aid.

Eswatini Med alleged that Justice Mlangeni’s wife is one of those employees. Eswatini Med contends that its rules do not permit split membership where one employer subscribes some of its employees to Eswatini Med and other employees of the same employer to another medical aid service provider. In other words, it is either all employees in an organisation subscribe to Eswatini Med or all of them leave.

In its answering affidavit dated March 5, 2025, Eswatini Med explained the rationale for this. Eswatini Med says it is founded on the principle of social solidarity between all the subscribing employees irrespective of age, health, status or income.

Cross-subsidisation

This is characterised by cross-subsidisation between those who are young and healthy with the aged and less healthy members. This risk pooling is critical for the survival of Eswatini Med, which is a non-profit medical aid fund.

Under Part B of the prayers, EswatiniBank is seeking a declaration that Eswatini Med’s decision to prohibit split membership is unlawful. The dispute between the parties was sparked by the unilateral decision taken by a section of the employees of EswatiniBank to migrate to another medical aid service provider, the judge’s wife allegedly being one of them and inevitably in consultation with her spouse the judge, according to Eswatini Med. The judge is supposed to determine whether it was permissible for the section of EswatiniBank employees to migrate to another medical aid service provider and leave other employees of EswatiniBank with Eswatini Med, the so-called split membership.

It is submitted that it is this conflict of interest that disqualifies Judge Mlangeni from suitability to hear and determine the matter. It raises reasonable apprehension of bias by the judge.

Eswatini Med and Simelane, when they appealed the order not to terminate the bank employees’ membership to the fund, alleged in one of the grounds of appeal that Judge Mlangeni should not have heard the matter because of bias arising from the fact that the order he granted directly benefitted his wife, who is an employee of EswatiniBank.

However, Judge Mlangeni said, “My wife is not a member of Eswatini Med. It’s a lie. If she was, I would not have heard the matter. I have enough sense to know that. It’s a lie that she is a member.”

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