MBABANE: Chief Justice(CJ) Bheki Maphalala was at the University of Pretoria on Wednesday to attend his daughter Sibongokuhle Temanyandzeni Maphalala’s graduation.
The CJ was escorted by three(3) State vehicles including a BMW registered GSD 021 JD, a Toyoya GD6 with registration numbers GSD 084 PO and another BMW registered GSD 668 P0.
Efforts to seek a comment from the CJ proved unsuccessful at the time of compiling this report.
Reached for comments,Brian Sangweni,the National Spokesperson of the People’s United Democratic Movement(PUDEMO) said, with reference to a previous incident where an Anti-Vehicle Abuse official arrested a Judge’s driver for abusing a State vehicle by driving a Judge for personal errands, the Chief Justice’s driver was supposed to be arrested as well for transporting the CJ to Pretoria for an event that has nothing to do with State duties.
“With reference to the above case, the driver who was transporting the CJ to unofficial duties or duties that does not pertain to the roles of the courts was supposed to be arrested.Prior authorization needs to be sought before a state vehicle is assigned a certain service. This could be one of the many cases of abuse of power and state resources which should be condemned if so. State resources no matter how little they can be deemed, if they are misused the loss accrues to the taxpayer which in the case are the struggling Emaswati without medication in health facilities. The accumulative costs of such abuse are huge and can go a long to provide services to our people”, said the PUDEMO Spokesperson.
Chief Justice Bheki Maphalala attends daughter’s graduation at the University of Pretoria, escorted with three(3) State vehicles.