By Bongiwe Dlamini

MBABANE:Morten Nilesen,the Political and Campaign Officer of the Global Action, a Denmark based Non-governmental Organization(NGO) that funds the Swaziland United Democratic Front(SUDF),  has denied influencing Media Officer Abigal Jele’s alleged unfair dismissal.

This comes after a report alleging that,Jele was unfairly dismissed by SUDF leader Themba Mabuza after being summoned for a meeting at the Manzini Bus Rank and told that her services were no longer needed, despite an earlier appraisal where the donor expressed appreciation for her performance.

Reached for comments, the dismissed Media Officer confirmed to this Swaziland News that, her services were terminated adding that,Mabuza told her,the instruction came from a donor based in Denmark.

“I was shocked to be treated this way by an organization that claims to be fighting for human rights”, said the dismissed Media Officer when speaking to this publication.

Responding to this Swaziland News on Saturday through an email,Nilesen said,Global Action does not have employees in eSwatini but clarified that,Jele was engaged by the organization’s partners for a specific project through a contract that later expired at the end of the project.

“Our answer is that Global Aktion does not have any employees in Swaziland.It is our partners in Swaziland that handel hiring of staff. To our knowledge has Mrs Abigal Jele not been employed in the recent 12 months.The hiring of Mrs Abigail Jele was associated with a special project linked to the COVID19 pandemic.This project ended at the end of 2022 and with that expired Mrs Abigail Jele’s contract of employment”, he said through an email sent to editor Zweli Martin Dlamini.

Lucky Dlamini,the Chairperson of the Swaziland United Democratic Front(SUDF)vigorously denied that, the organization unfairly dismissed it’s Media Officer adding that, the relationship between the employer and the employee was based on a specific project.

“The fact of the matter is,no staff was ever fired,a project came to an end where all staff members’ contracts ended as they were project based. A new project was applied for by SUDF as an organisation not staff.The new project demanded that recruitment must be done on merits NOT by who was involved in previous projects even though SUDF looked at performances and recruited some officers from the project that ended where a recruitment process was embarked on and came up with the current staff members.The SUDF is founded on the principles of fundamental rights, values and strives for the respect and recognition of all rights of people, as such this narrative that present the front as an organisation that abuses, has no structures and policies that guide it in matters of employees, volunteers and other service providers to the organisation is ridiculous.We reject this narrative, and the insinuations assorted with it, and we will like to set the record straight, that all matters of the front are handled by the NEC of the organisation and the organisation has offices, thus the lies of firing someone in a ‘bus rank’ are only told to belittle, undermine and manufacture discontent against the SUDF”, said the Chairman through a statement sent to this publication.