Swazi Observer

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CIVIL SERVANTSâ€™ NEAR STAMPEDE FOR LOANS CONTINUES

By Samkelisiwe Khoza | 2018-12-19

PUSHING and shoving was the order of the day as civil servants were in a near stampede during a mad rush for loans in their co-operative society, Bunye Betfu, Buhle Betfu offices yesterday.

As they shoved one another, they exchanged unfriendly words over who was to be attended to first. Mbabane Police Station officers had to intervene to maintain order.

For the past two days, civil servants queuing up at the cooperative offices during the early hours of dawn, as early as 4am precisely, for an opportunity to apply for education loans. Upon arrival on Monday, civil servants are said to have been handed over tickets with numbers that will determine who got to be served first.

It was reported that this scuffle comes shortly after a chaotic meeting revealed that E1.7 million was mismanaged by certain individuals at the cooperative. It is therefore, believed that most civil servants want to get whatever they can before those holding office are tempted to render the society dry. In the meantime, the cooperative society also has large sums of members’ moneys with the members themselves as outstanding loans.

Information gathered by this publication is that the cooperative was able to attend to 300 people only amongst the estimated 1 500 civil servants who had crammed the offices.

The remaining are said to have been told that the first person to be attended to is number 301 the following day (yesterday).

Unfortunately, a security guard on duty changed the whole arrangement in the morning and told civil servants that they would now be attended according to who arrived first. As a result, people began shoving and stepping on each other. Insults and unfriendly words were hurled while everyone was pushing to be first on the line.

Moreover, the cooperative administrators had to lock the doors and left the civil servants scuffle on who gets to be first the early riser or the one who holds the 301 ticket. Uniformed and plain clothed police officers swiftly arrived at the scene and calmed the now agitated civil servants down. Finally, the officers began calling numbers starting from the agreed on 301.

Others joined in the long lines while others sought shade at the Eswatini Building Society on the opposite side of the cooperative society building.

On Monday after enduring heat for long hours, staffers from Eswatini Mobile network provided them with caps to protect themselves from the sun and further offered them cold juice to cool off.

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