PIGG’S PEAK – It’s good news for registration clerks as they will start receiving their pay from today.
The announcement was issued by the Elections and Boundaries Commission (EBC), which had engaged the clerks to work for the duration of the 2023 General Elections. The payment follows numerous concerns that were raised by the registration clerks that they still haven’t been paid by the EBC. Some claimed that since May when they were engaged by the commission, they had not been paid even a cent. It was later established that some of the registration clerks started receiving their pay yesterday. A clerk confided to this publication that she was yesterday paid E11 000 by the EBC after tax.
Mixed
The payment of the registration clerks came with mixed feelings because while some were happy, others were furious in that they allegedly received less than their counterparts. Another clerk claimed that while others got E9 300, he received E2 080. “We are confused on what is going on because we all worked the same number of days,” said the clerk.
The remuneration of the registration clerks was confirmed by the EBC Communications Officer Mbonisi Bhembe.
“The last time I consulted with the Accounts Department, I was informed that they will start paying the registration clerks on Friday (today),” said Bhembe. The EBC had earlier revealed why they could not pay the registration clerks. The commission strongly suspected that there were ‘ghost’ registration clerks likely to fraudulently benefit if the payment exercise was not thoroughly scrutinised before being carried out.
Extend
Voter registration of emaSwati who wished to participate in the 2023 General Elections commenced on Wednesday, May 10, 2023, which was to run until June 14, 2023 but the commission decided to extend the registration exercise to Sunday, June 18, 2023 as a result of a massive response by emaSwati to register. Some of the registration clerks had openly indicated their frustration over the delayed payment and most had also highlighted that they were in the dark on how much they ought to be paid as the commission supposedly never communicated this.
According to Bhembe, they encountered challenges when they wanted to pay the registration clerks in that some of them did not use their personal cellphone numbers when registering with the EBC but used other people’s cellphone numbers.