MBABANE:King Mswati’s ability to appoint a competent Auditor General(AG) has been challenged by Prime Minister Russell Mmiso Dlamini who labeled Timothy Matsebula, a King’s appointee and the entire AG’s Office incompetent triggering a constitutional crisis.
This is not the first time a sitting Prime Minister utters statements that triggered a crisis, Barnabas Sibusiso Dlamini, the then PM was fired by King Mswati after the November 28, 2002 statement that triggered a judicial crisis.
The late Prime Minister declared that, Government will not respect court decisions and Judges of the Supreme Court of Appeal resigned en’massely after the PM’s statement.
But the King subsequently fired Barnabas after the international community condemned eSwatini for disregarding the rule of law.
Section 207 of the Constitution suggests that,the Auditor General is appointed by the King acting on the recommendations of the Minister of Finance and the Civil Service Commission(CSC), PM Russell Mmiso Dlamini has labeled the AG who was appointed by King Mswati incompetent.
“It is important that we have to begin to look at whether the reports of the Auditor General can now be relied upon. Yes I’m saying that, just hold on, just listen you need to listen to that.We now have to work on whether the reports of the Auditor General can be relied upon.Let me give you an example;the country now understands that there’s R180million missing from NDMA, there was never R180million that is missing. Now he has actually said, there’s another R30million,so people have began to write about R210million,all that is false I can surely tell you, it is false and in fact it points to the incompetence in that office”,said the Prime Minister when responding to a question posed by Bheki Makhubu, the editor of the Nation Magazine during a Breakfast Meeting with editors at the Mountain View on Thursday.
The PM was being questioned by Makhubu after failing to account for about R210million public and donated funds while serving as the Chief Executive Officer of the Disaster Management Agency(NDMA).
On Friday morning and subsequent to the Prime Minister’s statements casting aspersions on the Office of the Auditor General(AG), the Public Accounts Committee(PAC) suspended operations as the PM’s statements grounded even the Parliament PAC.
“It would be hard to even summon Principal Secretaries and demand accountability of public funds after the Prime Minister’s statements. So as the PAC, we have decided to suspend sittings pending guidance from the House or from the MPs who entrusted us with the task”, said the PAC Chairperson when addressing a press conference on Friday morning.
Prime Minister Russell Mmiso Dlamini has been stretching his political muscle,attacking all institutions that demand accountability of public funds, he first tried to regulate the media after being exposed to have failed to account for the missing public funds and was subsequently stopped by Information, Communications and Technology(ICT) Minister Savannah Maziya.
But on Thursday, the PM triggered a constitutional crisis in eSwatini when he single-handedly grounded both the Office of the Auditor General(AG) and the Parliament Public Accounts Committee(PAC).
It remains unclear if the country’s international partners and/or donors will continue to pump-in money for development projects amid the uncertainty in the eSwatini transparency and accountability systems.
King Mswati.