By Mduduzi Hlophe

MBABANE:Bheki Mamba, the President of the Swaziland Democratic Nurses Union (SWADNU) said the E 50.4 million budgeted for the recruitment of new police officers was enough to hire half of the nursing staff needed to boost the health system in the country.

Speaking during an interview with this Swaziland News on Thursday, the Nurses’ union President noted that all governments the world over were prioritising  their health systems in the midst of the COVID 19 pandemic.

“It is quite worrying that government is concentrating on strengthening the armed forces instead of the lives of Emaswati. All countries in the world have doubled their human resource in their health departments but this is not happening in this country despite the fact that many of our health workers are getting infected by the COVID 19 virus. The remaining staff gets overstretched and this has resulted in the closure of some departments. We are therefore demanding an additional 2000 of nursing staff and the police budget could cover salaries of about half of the additional staff that we need”, said the Nurses’ union President.

But on Thursday, Nosipho Mnguni, the Acting Chief Police Information and Communications Officer issued a statement clarifying that there was no recruitment currently taking place within the police organisation. This comes after an article that was published by the Times of Eswatini where it was alleged that Royal Eswatini Police Service (REPS) intended to recruit over 700 new police officers, the estimated budget for the recruitment exercise is around E 50.4million.

“The article merely stated the need for replacement of vacancies in the police organisation but nothing about the recruitment is being done.It has become a norm that when such uncertainty arises, scammers emerge and take advantage of desperate citizens of their hard earned monies by promising to help them get recruited. The nation is advised never to accept any alleged assistance which will require any sort of payment in facilitating one’s recruitment into the Police Service. The public  is once again  reminded  that  any recruitment  by the organization  will be done only after an official  advert has been placed in the local media  platforms”, reads the statement in part.