MBABANE Timothy Myeni, the Nkilongo Member of Parliament(MP) who was vocal in advocating for the welfare of police officers says the historic protest by law enforcers could have been avoided if Government had listened to his Parliament submissions.
Speaking to this Swaziland News on Wednesday, the MP said these police officers did everything peacefully including lobbying him and other MPs to try and raise their plight in Parliament.
“I was approached by a group of police officers who asked me to raise their plight in Parliament and I did just that. Considering the fact that these officers approached an MP, it is evident that they were eager to see their matter being resolved peacefully through the appropriate channels.Now, they are protesting and you cannot blame them, they tried to talk to Government and even asked some of us to assist them by raising this issue in Parliament. What is happening now could have been prevented if Government had listened to my submissions,” said the Nkilongo Member of Parliament.
A questionnaire was sent to Government Spokesperson Alpheous Nxumalo, however, he had not responded at the time of compiling this report.
On Tuesday morning, police officers and Warders marched to the Prime Minister’s Office, they are demanding a salary increment under Phase Two(2).
It has been disclosed that members of the Executive Command have looted over R100 million in monies meant to increase salaries for junior police officers, the money was misappropriated through the creation of over twenty(20)Deputy National and Assistant Commissioners posts that are now redundant.
It has been disclosed that after creating the posts and falsely convincing King Mswati that they were benchmarking with the Southern African Development Community(SADC) standards, the Executive Command subsequently allocated themselves huge salaries that depleted the millions meant to increase salaries for junior officers.
MP Timothy Myeni.