Students who have completed their exams at the
University of Swaziland (UNISWA) will not get their results because the
government has not paid their tuition fees.
More than 3,200 students - almost half of all students
at the university - owed fees, a
newspaper quoted UNISWA Registrar Salebona Simelane saying.
The Swazi
Observer reported Simelane said the university would withhold results until
fees had been paid.
It emerged that ‘millions of emalangeni’ was owed in
fees by the government. The newspaper reported on
Monday (9 July 2018), ‘UNISWA Registrar Dr Salebona
Simelane made it clear when asked on what would happen to those students who
were government-sponsored and had not paid their tuition fees. Simelane
said it did not matter whether a student was self-sponsored or sponsored by
government.’
It added, ‘The registrar said the university
would exercise the same measure across the board and would not be lenient with
any party, whether government sponsored or not.’
The Observer reported students
were angry with the decision. ‘The students stated that they did not understand
how they owed fees when it was government who was paying.’ The students
thought that since their allowances had been paid so had their fees.
Swaziland is in financial meltdown with the government living from day
to day. In his budget
speech in March 2018 Finance
Minister Martin Dlamini said government owed E3.1bn (US$230 million) in total
to its suppliers for goods and services.
On 14 June 2018 he
told the House of Assembly there
was not enough money to pay public servants’ salaries or to pay government
suppliers and things were set to get worse.
In June it was reported
that children
collapsed with hunger in their school because the government had not
paid for food for them. The kingdom had previously been warned to expect
children to starve because the government had not paid its suppliers
for the food that is distributed free of charge at schools. The shortage was
reported to be widespread across the kingdom.
Last week Swazipharm Swaziland’s largest distributor of pharmaceutical
products and medical equipment to the healthcare system of Swaziland, including
government hospitals, private hospitals, local government, clinics,
humanitarian organisations, private organisations, missionaries, pharmacies and
chemists, reported
it had almost run out of supplies of medicine and provisions because
the government had not paid its bills.
Despite this crisis, in his
March 2018 budget Dlamini announced E1.5bn (US$125m) would be set aside his
year to build a conference centre and five-star hotel to host the
African Union summit in 2020 that would last only eight days. E5.5
million is budgeted to build Prime Minister Barnabas Dlamini a retirement
house, and plans are being made for a new parliament building that would cost
E2.3 billion.
While the kingdom ruled by
King Mswati III, one of the world’s last absolute monarchs, grinds to a halt
the government found US$30 million to
buy the King a second private jet plane.
Seven in 10 of the 1.1
people in Swaziland live in abject poverty with incomes less than the
equivalent of US$2 per day. Meanwhile, King Mswati and his family live in excessive
luxury. The King wore a watch
worth US$1.6 million and a suit
beaded with diamonds weighing 6 kg, at his 50th birthday
party in April. This was days after he took delivery of his second private jet,
a A340 Airbus. He received E15 million (US$1.2 million) in cheques, a
gold dining room suite and a gold
lounge suite among his birthday gifts.
King Mswati also has 13
palaces, two private jets and fleets of top-of-the-range BMW and Mercedes cars.
His family regularly take international shopping trips costing millions of
dollars.
See also
STUDENT
PROTEST LEADERS SUSPENDED
STUDENTS MARCH ON GOVERNMENT
SWAZILAND ADMITS IT IS BROKE
https://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2018/06/swaziland-admits-it-is-broke.html
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