E37m for 12 tinkhundla rehabilitation
MBABANE – Government has set aside E37 million for rehabilitating the 12 tinkhundla centres that were petrol-bombed and vandalised during the June/July unrest.
This amount was revealed by the Minister of Tinkhundla Administration and Development, David ‘Cruiser’ Ngcamphalala, in an interview, stating that it was actually an amount included in the national budget for 2022/2023, that was delivered by the Minister of Finance Neal Rijkenberg early this year.
Nosimilo Vilakati, Communications Officer in the Ministry of Tinkhundla Administration and Development, said these 12 tinkhundla centres were; Somntongo, Ngudzeni, Methula, Sandleni, Maseyisini, Matsanjeni, Timphisini, Hosea, Ndzingeni, Mayiwane, Ngwempisi and Ntondozi. All these centres were burnt and some were vandalised. This comes after some residents, Tinkhundla headmen and Members of Parliament (MP), where the centres were affected, lamented that for almost a year now, their centres remained in ruins. They were complaining that since the centres were set alight and vandalised, they had to convene meetings under trees or in temporary structures.
Situation
In a previous interview, Minister Ngcamphalala said he was aware of the situation in those centres and government was working around the clock to fix them.
The minister said government had engaged Micro Projects to be responsible for fixing the tinkhundla centres.
When sought for comment, Micro Projects Director Sibusiso Mbingo confirmed being engaged by the ministry on the exercise of rehabilitating the tinkhundla centres. He said as
Micro Projects, they did an assessment of the damaged tinkhundla centres where they noted that some needed to be rebuilt from scratch while others would require renovations.
Mbingo said upon completing the assessment, they submitted the report to the ministry and were now waiting for the funds and a go-ahead from the ministry.
When asked about the other tinkhundla centres that were set alight later on, which included Kwaluseni, Sithobela and Kukhanyeni, the communications officer (Vilakati) said the ministry was also aware of them and would fix them as well. She said the only reason they were not in the aforementioned budget was that they were petrol-bombed after the ministry had done the assessment of those burnt in June/July.
“Now that they are known, they have been documented and government will also prepare a budget for them as well,” said Vilakati.