BY PHUMELELE MKHONTA
MBABANE– Just on budget!
This is the Ministry of Home Affairs, who saved E1.4 million when planning and executing national celebrations.
This is according to the Ministry of Home Affairs Annual Performance Report to Parliament 2022/2023, which showed that the Ministry, under the Celebrations Department, saved the country money.
According to the report has been tabled in Parliament, funds released for national celebrations was E21 132 142, however, the Ministry only spent E19 687 995 so far; meaning the Celebrations Department saved E1 444 147.
National celebrations in the country include the Incwala Ceremony, the Reed Dance, Buganu Festivals, among others.
The Celebrations Department is responsible for planning these national celebrations.
According to the detailed report from the Celebrations Department at the Ministry of Home Affairs, the projections under the CTA charges indicate that savings of 13 per cent might be realised under this item.
“An amount of E 6034 was paid for overtime claims against a zero-budget item. This will be normalized through re-allocations before the end of this year under personal costs.
“Communications expenses were well budgeted and executed effectively. Projections show that the funds would be used as per the budget allocation. Services Funds were also fully utilised by the end of the financial year. Consumables budget were spent as allocated,” read the report.
Worth noting is that the Ministry of Home Affairs has been hailed as one of the most improved Ministries.
In just one year, they managed to improve their systems, in turn improving turnaround time for BMD (birth, marriage, death) registrations and producing travel documents in less than 24 hours.
Also, their staff now wears uniform- something which was anonymous in the Ministry. EmaSwati took to their social media, applauding the Ministry for the improvements in service delivery.
