E628 MILLION FOR ARMY SALARIES

MBABANE – At least E628 million of the funds in the next financial year’s budget will be spent only on paying salaries for the country’s soldiers and Ministry of Defence personnel.
Documents reveal that this amount will be taken from the E878 million allocated to this ministry for the 2014/15 financial year, which begins on April 1, 2014.

The Ministry of Defence, under which the Umbutfo Swaziland Defence Force (USDF) falls, has the leeway to use at least E828 million on recurrent expenditure. At least E50 million has been set aside for capital projects, which usually includes construction work.
The total national budget stands at E15.3 billion.
The Budget Estimates for the 2014/15 financial year reveal that the Ministry of Defence has at least E100 million to spend on consumables in the next 12 months.
E62.3 million will be spent on what are known as CTA charges.

CTA stands for Central Transport Administration, which is the government garage with various depots around the country. These include Pigg’s Peak, Siteki and Matsapha.
The Headquarters is in Mbabane.
On top of the CTA charges, the army has E15 million more for an item listed as ‘Transport’.

This means the overall transport costs for the year are estimated to reach at least E77 million.
The Ministry of Defence is actually second to the Ministry of Education and Training in terms of personnel costs or salaries to be paid to staff members.
The Ministry of Education has been allocated over E2.4 billion for the coming fiscal year.

Now under former teacher Phineas Magagula, it will spend close to E1.8 billion of this amount on salaries for teachers, lecturers, ministry personnel and other staffers.
This ministry employs a total of 15 046 people, according to the current Establishment Register, which lists the number of posts in all ministries and departments. However, the number of soldiers is not mentioned. The reason given has always been that this would compromise security.

The second most important ministry in any country – Health – will spend less than the Ministry of Defence on salaries, according to the public documents.
It has been allocated at least E533 million for personnel costs, an amount that is also less than what has been set aside for salaries in the Royal Swaziland Police (RSP) service.
The police will be allowed to spend up to E743 million in the next 12 months.
Of this amount, E579 million will be spent on salaries for all junior and senior police officers.

Salaries for Correctional Services staffers will be paid from a E270.2 million allocation for the stated financial year.
This is part of a total budget of E424 million, set aside to run the country’s prisons and meet other costs involved in the task of rehabilitating offenders.
The above amount represents both recurrent and capital expenditure allocations. The Times SUNDAY made an attempt to interrogate the issue of consumables, for which millions of Emalangeni have been allocated per department or ministry.

Major Madoda Mkhatshwa, Army spokesman, referred questions to Andreas Mathabela, Principal Secretary (PS) in the Ministry of Defence. Mathabela was called several times but was unavailable.
He was called until 7pm on Friday, with his phone indicating that he was on another call.
Superintendent Wendy Hleta, Police Public Relations Officer, said the issue she was being asked about was beyond the mandate of her office.

She referred questions to National Commissioner Isaac Magagula, who had not reached when this report was compiled.
However, Dr Simon Zwane, PS in the Ministry of Health, was able to clarify that consumables were usually stuff that was used on a daily basis, like stationery, paper, pens, printer cartridges, cleaning equipment and other supplies.
He said normally, such items were the same for most government ministries.
As stated above, the Ministry of defence has at least E100 million for this expenditure item.

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