Children a primary school
in Swaziland / Eswatini were sent home because their parents did not help to
pay its electricity bill.
Parents at Antioch Primary,
Manzini, said the government had not paid the school its funds so it had no
money to cover its operational costs.
Children were also sent
home for not contributing money to allow the school’s choristers to go to the
SwaziBank Choral Competition, the Swazi
Observer newspaper reported on Friday (6 July 2018).
The Swaziland Government is
broke and owes more than E3 billion
(US$230 million) to suppliers. Medicines at public hospitals
have dried up and children across the kingdom are going hungry
because the government has not funded school feeding programmes.
The Observer reported one parent who said they were called to a meeting
at the school to be told that they would have to pay for the school’s
electricity bill and trip. ‘It was not easy for them to oppose such because
they felt like their children would be victimised,’ it reported.
It added, ‘The mother of
two said she did not understand why her children had to be sent home for
failing to pay electricity for the school and pay for a trip that they were not
even going to partake in.’
The Government in Swaziland has failed to pay primary school
fees across the kingdom. In June 2018 headteachers and principals told the Swazi Observer they
were in huge debts and unable to pay suppliers. It said the problem was
with the government which faced financial challenges. It reported one school
principal saying education in the kingdom would continue to deteriorate if the
situation did not improve.
The Swaziland national
budget has been mismanaged for years. Swaziland is broke and the government is
living from hand to mouth. Earlier this month Finance
Minister Martin Dlamini told the House of Assembly as of 31 March 2018 government owed E3.28 billion.
Dlamini said budget projections indicated ‘exponential growth in the arrears’.
Despite the funding crisis, the Swazi Government still
found US$30
million to buy the King a
second private plane. It has also earmarked E1.5bn this year to build a
conference centre and five-star hotel to host the African
Union summit in 2020 that
will last only eight days and it has budgeted E5.5 million to build Prime
Minister Barnabas Dlamini a retirement house. There are also plans for a new
parliament building that will cost E2.3 billion.
The excessive lifestyle of
King Mswati has also been under the spotlight. He now has two private planes,
13 palaces and fleets of top-of-the-range BMW and Mercedes cars.
He wore a watch
worth US$1.6 million and a suit
beaded with diamonds weighing 6 kg, at his 50th birthday party.
He received E15 million (US$1.2 million) in cheques, a
gold dining room suite and a gold
lounge suite among his birthday gifts.
Meanwhile, the
World
Food Program has said it cannot raise the US$1.1 million it needs to
feed starving children in the kingdom in the coming six months.
See
also
CHAOS
AS GOVT FAILS TO PAY SCHOOL FEES
KING
EATS OFF GOLD, CHILDREN COLLAPSE WITH HUNGER
NO FOOD SO SCHOOLKIDS SENT HOME
HUNGER FORCES SCHOOLS TO CLOSE EARLY
http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2017/02/hunger-forces-schools-to-close-early.html
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