The Swaziland Government is broke and ‘living from
hand to mouth’, according to an independent newspaper in the kingdom.
It has so little money that it relies on tax revenues
to pay bills and this has meant that salaries of public servants have been paid
late in recent months.
The Government is taking taxes collected by the
Swaziland Revenue Authority (SRA) and making decisions on how immediately to
spend the money.
The Times Sunday
reported (16 October 2017) that the SRA collected money daily and deposited it in
the government coffers known as the consolidated fund each week.
The newspaper reported Martin Dlamini, Minister of
Finance, said a cash flow crisis surfaces when there were extraordinary
expenses.
The news of the budget crisis came at the same time it
was revealed that senior public servants received
an 18.9 pay increase this month. Meanwhile, ordinary public servants have
been told by government they will get no increase at all this year.
The Times Sunday
also reported fears that the Swazi Government was not remitting public servant
subscriptions to cooperatives. Aubrey Sibiya, President of the National Public
Service and Allied Workers’ Union, told the newspaper that members of the
cooperative were being told they could not take out loans because they had not
paid subscriptions.
‘We suspect that government is not remitting
subscriptions,’ the Times reported him
saying.
On Wednesday (19 October 2017), it was
reported the government had borrowed E1.2 billion from the Central Bank of Swaziland.
In September 2017 the International Monetary Fund
(IMF) reported that increased government spending in Swaziland resulted in the highest
deficit since 2010. It said the outlook for the future of the economy was ‘fragile’
and that the medium term outlook was ‘unsustainable’ without policy changes.
It also said the governance of public entities was
poor.
The IMF recommended that the government should contain
‘the bloated government wage bill’, curb non-essential purchases and prioritize
capital outlays.
See also
SWAZI
KING’S BUDGET INCREASES US$14 MILLION
THREAT
TO LIFE AS GOVERNMENT DOESN’T PAY BILLS
SWAZI
MPs REJECT NATIONAL BUDGET
U.S.
SAYS BUDGET LACKS TRANSPARENCY
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