By ZWELETHU DLAMINI | 2020-06-21

The National Disaster Management Agency (NDMA) Chief Executive Officer, Russell Dlamini has given an ultimatum to people in gainful employment who were registered and benefited from cash transfer from the agency saying they must pay back the money or face arrest.

This follows reports by this publication indicating that a number of people with questionable credentials were registered as beneficiaries for the cash transfer which raised eyebrows about the criteria used.

It was discovered that there were a number of people who were considered not deserving to be in the list, but their names were found in the list of beneficiaries.

Dlamini said people who are in gainful employment should not have registered at all. hence, the excuse that they were mistakenly registered by the organisations which were tasked with the registration process, did not hold water.  Therefore, they should immediately pay back the money.

“We are going to the communities and we will be getting their lists and we are going to arrest them as soon as we verify that they got the transfers.

The noble thing they can do is to pay the money back so that it can be directed to the deserving beneficiaries. They have no excuse, we have been announcing that the aid is targeting vulnerable people not civil servants security service or anyone in gainful employment,” he said.  Dlamini said his team will be conducting the verification exercise this week and those in the wrong will be brought to book.

The agency has announced that due to the numerous complaints received under Lobamba Inkhundla, registration of people to benefit from the cash transfer will be restarted.

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This did not sit well with the caregivers who stated that they were no longer interested in being part of the process as they have been insulted and accused of favoritism in the registration, yet they believe the error was made by the organisation that was tasked to work with them in the registration.

The registration  and the distribution has been marred with a lot of controversy as some of deserving  people were left out as the E700 was received by civil servants, landlords as well as parastatals’ employees, under questionable circumstances.

Some of those that were part of the registration process at Ezulwini stated that they had been instructed by the organisation sent by NDMA to submit three lists to them one being that of those who were most vulnerable, those who were affected by COVID, and those who were in the two groups which included people in gainful employment and civil servants.

 They accused the organisation or NDMA of having mixed the names of the people in the three lists to come out with a list that was questionable.  To them, it seemed as if a few individuals from each of the three categories were randomly selected, resulting in some of the vulnerable being left out and some undeserving people benefiting in the process.

 “We raised this observation when they came back with the questionable list, but this was late as the cash transfers had already been made and they could not reverse it.

This then irked the desperate vulnerable people who had been left out including elderly people as they were aware that undeserving people had received the money while hey starved,” said a source.

The source said this then led to the people blaming the health motivators, caregivers and everyone who was involved with the registration.

NDMA on the other had, handed over the registration process to another organisation as the complaints suggest that there were mistakes and the registration did not go accordingly.

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