Eswatini Labour Insight

  Budget failed to effect distributive expenditure and instead continued the trickle down dream. By Fundizwi Sikhondze   Inequality (Source: Online) The budget speech read by Finance Minister Neal Rijkernberg on 26 th February 2021 demonstrated once more what many have always feared around the country, that the government, made up of mainly business operatives continues not doing much to balance the economic imbalances that afflict the Eswatini society. The Minister of Finance instead chose to continue down the beaten path of trickle-down economics. The trickle-down economics doctrine basically entrusts the private sector with correcting societal challenges that include poverty reduction and unemployment reduction. In reality however the markets are never perfect and thus may not give the expected result as any given moment. For instance, where companies are supposed to hire more people to undertake certain services, they can delay and not do the same, continue to u...

       Pictures. A E100.00 note (LEFT) and  Minister Neal Rijkenrberg (RIGHT). Picture courtesy of Eswatini Observer online. By Fundizwi Sikhondze (Coordinator of Swazi Labour News) The Minster of Finance Neal Rijkenberg is expected to deliver the national budget on Friday the 26th February 2021. This shall be is third in this 11th Parliament of Swaziland /Eswatini. The national budget gives a glimpse as to the expenditure plans for the government in the 2021/22 financial year. The priorities of the budget priorities ,at times some changes in ideological approaches and in other times perhaps a deepening of some ideological directions already taken by the government in previous years.  2021 presents a special scenario wherein the previous year (2020) brought with it deep challenges globally because of COVID-19 and as a result considerable shifting of resources from other national needs took place while also pressing demands could not be ignored. The budget ...

  Breakdown of the January 2021 Nurses sit-in strike at Mavuso COVID-19 makeshift hospital. A Nurse displaying a placard inscribed “Help us save our people, Bafa bantfu emahhulumbeni” during their industrial action   The Mavuso Trade Centre Makeshift Hospital Nurses Speak Out!!! Nurses organised under the Swaziland Democratic Nurses Union (SWADNU) ( Swaziland Nurses Association (SNA)) and stationed at the Mavuso Trade Centre makeshift hospital, recently engaged in a sit-in industrial action over a range of grievances including that government must fulfil their promise to make proper modifications at Mavuso to make it habitable as a place to provide healthcare, to compel government to make provisions for equipment to enable nurses and other professionals to assist patients and the nurses demand to be paid risk allowance for their frontline work on COVID-19. Their choice to engage in a sit-in strike action compared to...