By Bongiwe Dlamini

MBABANE:Eswatini police are reportedly investigating but, struggling to identify a criminal charge for union leaders who recently visited the Mpolonjeni Free Evangelical Church to pray for success of the ongoing salary increment negotiations with Government.

Civil servants are struggling with low salaries amid the escalating costs of basic necessities or commodities in the country.

But the investigation by the police comes after Principal Secretary(PS) in the Ministry of Public Service Pastor Sipho Tsabedze of the Free Evangelical Church(FEC) left the pulpit and ran like a demon possessed person to the Police Station to open a case and this, was after he saw the union leaders praying to God inside the church.

Worth-noting,the PS is the Head of a Government Negotiation Team and union leaders opted to visit his church last week and pray with him after he recently abandoned a salary negotiation meeting saying, he doesn’t want Mbongwa Dlamini, the President of the Swaziland National Association of Teachers(SNAT) to the part of the negotiations.

The SNAT President is currently persecuted by the State for representing teachers.

But senior police sources told this Swaziland News that, the case reported by the Principal Secretary cannot be successfully prosecuted as “it is not a crime” to visit a church and pray.

“Even if you can suspect that they were there to intimidate and threatened the PS,how can you prove it because they just came-in, sing with the other church members and prayed?. The problem here is that the PS was intimidated by their presence knowing what he did during the salary negotiations meeting but they is absolutely no criminal offense. We will be embarrassing the country internationally if we can arrest them merely for visiting the church”, said the insider.

The PS had not responded at the time of compiling this report and police Spokesperson Senior Superintendent Phindile Vilakati declined to comment about the matter.

Reached for comments, Lot Vilakati,the Secretary General of the Swaziland National Association of Teachers(SNAT) said, they visited the Mpolonjeni Free Evangelical(FEC) church to pray for a peaceful and successful salary review negotiations.

“We went to Mpolonjeni Free Evangelical Church to pray for a peaceful and successful salary review negotiations and we don’t understand why the PS ran away upon our arrival”, said the SNAT Secretary General when responding to editor Zweli Martin Dlamini on Sunday.