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By Mbono Mdluli | 2019-02-01
THE march scheduled for today by the Public Sector Associations (PSAs) is going on as planned.
This comes after the Municipal Council of Mbabane has approved an application placed by the PSAs on Tuesday this week. Swaziland National Association of Teachers (SNAT) Secretary General Sikelela Dlamini confirmed that the march would take place today.
He said the municipal council approved their march and would march on less busy streets in the city. He said their march would start at about 9:30am from Coronation Park in Mbabane.
They are expected to deliver their petitions at the country’s several Cabinet ministries including the ministries of public service, justice, education and training, labour and social security. Dlamini also said they also wanted to deliver petitions at the police headquarters in Mbabane and at the South African High Commission.
The secretary said they wanted to inform the different government ministries that they wanted government to add CoLA (cost of living adjustment) in their salaries because their buying power was being eroded.
Concerning police, Dlamini said they wanted to voice their concern to the police about the brutality they usually experienced from them when they voiced out what was disturbing them in the country, especially when they held their demonstrations.
To the South African High Commission, Dlamini said they wanted to inform the South Africans that the CoLA issue also affected them as South Africans.
“South Africa has many businesses here in the country. This means many of the businesses rely on civil servants for businesses. If civil servants’ buying power is lessened in this way, their businesses will also be affected,” Dlamini said.
He further stated that with the current situation at hand, the economy of South Africa was strong and that of the country weaker.
This would be a problem to them because many Emaswati would migrate to South Africa in search of greener pastures. This would be a problem to South Africa such that the neighbouring country would find it difficult to absorb Emaswati.
“Because of that problem, we want to urge the South African government to engage our government with the view to encourage them to find ways of giving us the CoLA and further take us seriously as workers,” he said.
Dlamini said this march was a build up to marches that would follow, where people would be made aware of their plight as civil servants.
This comes after the civil servants lost an Industrial Court case on Sunday, when they wanted to engage on a strike last Monday.
However, the court stated that they should not strike because there was a court case that was pending between them and government.
The PSAs called a mass meeting at SNAT Centre, Manzini, where they finally resolved that they had to march to deliver the petitions.
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