By Zweli Martin Dlamini

MBABANE:Percy Simelane, the King’s Spokesperson, says even if the Monarch could decide to donate his uMhlanga R18million gift towards the purchasing of drugs in public hospitals, the money could be looted.

Responding to this Swaziland News on Friday evening when asked if the King could consider donating the money presented to him as “uMhlanga gift(tetfulo)” to mitigate the financial challenges within the collapsing health system, the Spokesperson said, “Government’s money is always available for the purchasing of drugs but maintained that, corruption is collapsing” the health system.

“To the best of my knowledge it’s  not lack of funds they has left our public hospitals without enough medication but corruption that has been going on for years without being taken with the seriousness it deserved. I was the first journalist to write about drugs being sold in markets, butcheries and by the  roadside as early as in 1986. More than two decades down the line we hardly have any convictionsl. Chances are that if the E18million was to be chanelled to cover hospital medications, it would still be pinched”, said the King’s Spokesperson.

Simelane said, the King called for the urgent arrest of all those stealing public monies within the Ministry of Health when delivering his Speech from the Throne but there were no convictions.

“In his Speech from the Throne last year, the King called for convictions as means to curtail corruption but we hardly have any. The Funduzi report on drug shortages in our hospitals it is spelt in no uncertain terms that between 2022 and 2023 , Government paid E1.1billion Emalangeni for drugs it had not ordered and were obviously not delivered”, said the King’s Spokesperson.