Lobamba – Senate has questioned whether anyone has been held accountable for the long-running pension crisis at the Eswatini Posts and Telecommunications Corporation (EPTC), as government moves to use millions of emalangeni from a new loan to address the problem.
Senator Tony Sibandze raised the concern on October 5, 2026, during a Senate sitting chaired by Deputy President Ndumiso Mdluli, questioning whether an investigation had ever been conducted into the pension deficit and whether anyone had been held responsible for what happened to the fund.
Sibandze said the pension problem had persisted for more than 10 years, leaving retirees without what was owed to them. He also questioned what guarantee there was that the newly approved loan of more than E400 million would be used for its intended purposes.
The questions came after Parliament approved the government guarantee for a US$26 million loan from the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD) for EPTC under the Digital Eswatini Project.
EPTC’s pension crisis has been extensively scrutinised by Parliament. In June, the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) heard that the pension fund had effectively been depleted and that EPTC was injecting about E2 million from its operational budget every month to ensure pensioners continued receiving benefits. The fund was said to require about E400 million to be fully funded.
The corporation’s pension obligations have also featured prominently during the debate on the new loan. EPTC previously told Parliament that its financial position could not support the US$26 million borrowing, resulting in government having to provide a sovereign guarantee. The loan is intended, among other things, to address the corporation’s legacy pension obligation.
Responding to the concerns in Senate, Minister of Information, Communications and Technology Savannah Maziya said E26 million from the loan would go towards the post office pension fund.
Maziya said the pension fund had been affected by the previous defined-benefit arrangement, which she said had depleted the fund and affected about 500 employees.
She said the allocation would enable government to meet obligations owed to employees who had served the post office for many years.
“It gives us very much pride that we are able to be a government that meets the award and people deserve, who’ve worked all these years,” Maziya said.
The Minister also assured senators that safeguards had been put in place to ensure the loan was properly managed.
She said the World Bank would manage the loan, including monitoring where the money was going and conducting audits on expenditure.
Maziya said procurement professionals had already been appointed and would be managed by the World Bank to ensure procurement under the project was properly guided, managed and evaluated.
The Minister said the financing would also support the laying of fibre optic infrastructure throughout the country, which she said would improve connectivity and help reduce the cost of data.
She said more than 857 schools would receive free Wi-Fi, while clinics, hospitals, bus stops and community centres would also benefit from connectivity.
According to Maziya, about 114 centres would receive connectivity, while post offices would be transformed into service centres where citizens could access computers, artificial intelligence training and government services.
She said the project would also strengthen cybersecurity, the national data centre and government digital platforms, including Government in Your Hand.
However, the pension allocation remains particularly significant because Parliament has previously heard that EPTC’s pension scheme has been underfunded for years.
In September, EPTC Managing Director Thulani Fakudze told Parliament that the corporation’s pension liability stood at about E390 million, while the corporation had contributed E126 million towards the pension since 2021. EPTC said the loan would be used to extinguish the pension deficit and support the transition from the legacy defined-benefit scheme to a defined-contribution arrangement.
The EPTC Staff Association has previously told Parliament that the pension deficit had exceeded E500 million and that some pensioners were receiving as little as E200 a month. The association also alleged that the pension scheme had been underfunded for many years.
This has now placed accountability at the centre of the debate.
While government has outlined how the new money will be controlled and how E26 million will be directed towards the pension fund, Sibandze’s questions leave a broader issue for Parliament to pursue: whether the historical circumstances that created the pension crisis were investigated and whether anyone was held accountable.
With government now guaranteeing the new loan, the Senate scrutiny also raises questions about whether the controls attached to the financing will be sufficient to prevent a repeat of the financial problems that contributed to EPTC’s current position.
The loan is expected to be repaid by EPTC, with repayment scheduled to begin in 2034 after a grace period. Parliament has also been assured that the corporation will be subject to monitoring to ensure the funds are used for their intended purpose.
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