By Zweli Martin Dlamini

Working for Government is slowly becoming worse than being employed in the private sector or a dagga dealer, civil servants are intentionally made to be financially broke and poor.

The question is; with Finance Minister Neal Rijikernberg emphasizing that the Wage Bill is high, who is benefiting from this Wage Bill?.

We are aware of ghost employees linked to royalty who are receiving salaries from Government for doing absolutely nothing and residing in Government houses, one of them is Prince Majaha’s friend Njobo Nkosi.

Finance Minister Neal Rijikernberg must not pretend as if he is not aware why the Wage Bill is so high, we have “Bo-Njobo Nkosi” in this country linked to royalty who receive salaries or reside in Government houses for doing absolutely nothing.

Government must remove those ghost employees from the State payment system within the Treasury Department and then, pay real civil servants decent wages.

It should be noted that, a majority of civil servants are living in poverty in this country, their salaries can no longer sustain them amid the ever escalating costs of living.

We are therefore, highly anticipating the outcomes of the Consultant salary review exercise commissioned by Government, any narrative seeking to deprive civil servants a salary increment must be rejected.

It’s been ten(10) years with no Salary Review and the costs of living has been escalating, civil servants found themselves with empty pockets or valueless salaries.

But even if the Wage Bill could reach R1billion per-month, Government must increase salaries for civil servants and reduce the royal budget.

It’s absolutely wrong for the Finance Minister to allocate billions to Mswati and then, complain about a huge Wage Bill when it comes to the salaries for civil servants, these civil servants must be paid more money so that they can support businesses within the Small and and Medium Enterprise(SME) sector.

The economy will not grow as expected if we have financially broke workers, increasing salaries for civil servants will benefit businesses because those workers will use the money to buy and support companies in the various industries.