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PARLIAMENT VIOLATING ITS COVENANT TO THE PEOPLE – BENNETT

By Mbongeni Mbingo | 2025-03-06

FOR Walter Bennett, the controversy surrounding the question of giving The Luke Commission (TLC) another E20 million as a bailout is a clear breakaway from the promise that the parliamentarians made to the people they represent.

The outspoken businessman is adamant that the decision to put aside E20 million towards TLC has not followed due process, should have come via a ministry and then Cabinet, instead of a portfolio committee instructing the minister of finance to ‘follow the orders of the House of Assembly’.
“Resources for Emaswati have a way to be disbursed for their purpose,” commented Bennett in an interview with this newspaper, who cautioned that this cannot be done willy-nilly, on the say-so of individuals.

Bennet has criticised parliamentarians for failing to protect the interests of the public, instead opting to become ‘TLC influencers, only looking at their own narrow interests’.
questioned
He has further questioned how the Luke Commission was now being granted another subvention when last year there was an undertaking that this was to be once-off.
Bennett has also questioned if the USAID is part of the donors for the TLC, how much they have pumped into the entity and what will become of it, now that the United States is withdrawing its funding from the country.
“Select committees, unfortunately, are no longer for the public interest; they are a means to an end. Ngumthiyamphisi,” he warned, referring to the role the portfolio committee has played in the debate.
Bennett has urged the media to be cautious but not to abandon the public interest, at the expense of personal interest.

“Sometimes what is written as comment or analysis… amazing stuff. It is like an alcoholic cursing the contents of a bottle of beer!” he said, referring to what he felt was the media’s failing to attach public interest in the matter.
Bennett therefore has called for a serious and comprehensive debate into the topic of funding of the Luke Commission, including its sources of income and the people behind it, in order for Emaswati to be comfortable with their money being given to it.

“How many indigenous NGOs are in need of funding? And who do they send to speak for them in Parliament? Are they not represented by the Members of Parliament?”
Besides the precedence being created for legitimate expectation for every institution, even if private entities, Bennett is concerned that legislators are ignoring, if not deliberately neglecting their core function to ensure that appropriation of funds has to follow certain procedures – not what is obtaining in the current controversy.
believes
As it is, he believes that what the current situation serves is nothing but to set His Majesty the King against his people.
This, he points out, is owed to the TLC’s reluctance to being audited, or to account for the public money they have already received from the State.
“Instead, they are using influencers (to avoid this); and yet it is not influencers that create the resources, that the king expects to be distributed fairly and within the regulations – wherever you are.
The resources that accrue to Emaswati, must be distributed in a defined manner – with watchdogs of these resources, including Parliament. In the end, the king then ascents to that budget.
“But, if there are going to be funds that have not gone through the processes and end up in the budget, and then require the head of State’s signature, how does that happen?”
MPs, Bennett has charged, are losing track of their own role.
pushing
“All of this is just pushing to one thing; the need for the right of recall,” he stated, in reference to the constitutional provision for oversight of legislators who fail to carry the public mandate.
He believes that this exposes the entire system to be weak because the public lacks the right of recall, which has led to parliamentarians doing as they please.
“This now makes the issue of the right of recall more appropriate; more pertinent and outstanding for action.”

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