Mbabane: Principal Secretary in the Ministry of Public Service, Sipho Tsabedze has revealed to this publication that civil servants who let out government quarters will be chucked out of the premises. Tsabedze said letting out government quarters was illegal and as a ministry it is something they seriously frown upon. He said they are fully aware of such malpractices within government quarters and they will soon deploy a unit which will conduct full investigations and the guilty will feel the wrath of the ministry.
Tsabedze didn’t say what would be done to the illegal ‘tenants’ but the civil servants will instead be given housing allowances with which they will find their own places and rent out rooms.
The ministry of public service is responsible for placement of civil servants under strict orders of not conducting any other business other than using the properties for residential purposes.
A random visit to government residential areas and talking to people has shown that a considerable percentage of people are illegal occupants of government’s residential quarters and they pay rent to civil servants that have been allocated those houses by the ministry of public service.
Tsabedze said, however, it is not an easy task to confirm that the ‘tenants’ living in those government quarters are illegal occupants due to agreements entered into between them and the civil servants. He said oftentimes their findings have shown that the parties will claim blood relations between each other. Thus, suspicious entities seeking to find how certain individuals are resident within government quarters will be told such.
He stated that the property rules state that civil servants are not to conduct businesses like letting out rooms within the premises, adding that the quarters are let out to the workers and it is absurd that they can do the same to unsuspecting individuals who do not even have links with government service.
Tsabedze said as a ministry responsible for promoting a culture of effective public service management in all government sectors they bear the duty to expose the corruption all maintain to integrity of the public service ministry.
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