University falls apart amid struggles to pay staff, providers

The monetary crisis at the University of Eswatini (UNESWA) is coming to a head after the institution recently failed to pay service providers, resulting in its water supply being cut off.

UNESWA has been operating at a loss for the past 10 years, Dr Bonginkhosi Dlamini, a member of the Eswatini parliament and the parliamentary portfolio committee on education, told University World News. He said the university has been operating at a deficit of around SZL150 million to SZL200 million (between US$8.3 million and US$11.1 million) per fiscal year.

“As a result,” he said, “staff members receive part of their salaries, and the university is struggling to pay its bills. The old infrastructure makes it worse as about SZL450 million is needed to recapitalise the university.”

Swimming in debt

The situation at UNESWA is so bad that the university recently had to close, Gabiey Ndukuya, the president of the Swaziland National Union of Students, told University World News. “The institution is facing a financial crisis and had to close for six weeks. They only issued a memo informing the students to come back tomorrow [14 November] to resume lectures,” she said.

The university delayed reopening because its water supply had been cut off, Dr Mduduzi Shongwe, a senior lecturer at UNESWA, said. Shongwe, who is also the secretary general of the Association of Lecturers, Academic and Administrative Personnel (ALAAP), said the university’s electricity and internet providers cut their services at one point because UNESWA owed them money.

“The university owes a lot of money to lots of companies and service providers and, right now, they [the university] are saying they don’t have money for operations because the government is not forthcoming with the tuition fees they are supposed to pay,” Shongwe said. The government of Eswatini pays tuition fees for UNESWA students but is defaulting. According to Dlamini, the government owed UNESWA SZL57 million (about US$3 million) in unpaid tuition fees when the university’s financial troubles started.

Overpaid executives

At the heart of UNESWA’s monetary crisis are accusations that top executives at the university are overpaid while UNESWA is struggling to make ends meet. One of the major reasons UNESWA is constantly discussed in parliament, Dlamini said, is failure by the university’s executive to explain “why they pay themselves above the PEU guidelines”.

PEU stands for Public Enterprise Unit, an organ that monitors the operational and financial affairs of public enterprises, such as UNESWA.

The ESWATINI Observer claimed in an article on 3 November 2024 that UNESWA’s vice-chancellor, Professor Justice Thwala, earns three times more than the country’s prime minister.

But Shongwe challenged the assertion that UNESWA’s executives are being overpaid, saying that the issue is subjective. He said UNESWA uses higher-education salaries in the SADC (Southern African Development Community) region as a benchmark when deciding what to pay its vice-chancellor, or other top executives.

“We compare ourselves with our counterparts in other countries,” he said, but conceded that, when salaries of top executives at the university are juxtaposed with PEU guidelines, it does, indeed, appear as if the executives are being overpaid.

University should be closed

Shongwe said that, if it were up to him, UNESWA would be closed to overhaul and recapitalise the university. “There are no working tools at the university right now,” he said. “We are struggling to get anything to use to do our jobs on a day-to-day basis because of the financial crisis.”

Shongwe said that the payment of lecturers’ salaries at the university is often delayed due to the budgetary crisis. University World News is in possession of a memorandum from the registrar’s office with the reference, ‘Delay in payment of salaries for November, 2024’. The memorandum states that there will be overdue payment of salaries at the university because of “a delay in the remittance of money due to the university”.

The ALAAP, however, warned that, if salaries were not in its members’ accounts by 11:59 pm on 19 November, ALAAP members were going to down tools. This was communicated through a letter Shongwe wrote in his capacity as ALAAP’s secretary general and addressed to the university’s acting registrar. It is not clear whether a strike did, indeed, start after the deadline had past.

On 20 November he told University World News salaries were not paid: "We [university staff aligned to ALAAP] did not go to work this morning because we do not have money for transport. Part of the salaries staff receive, pays for transport".

Shongwe said the government has contributed to the budgetary crisis at UNESWA because it has not given the university the finances it requires to run operations. He said the government has been giving the university only 34% of what it asks for in its budget. “So how do you expect them [the university executives] to run the university?” Shongwe asked.

Independence from government

“The government has also been delaying paying tuition fees. For example, right now the management of the university says the government has not paid anything … So, the students are just going to class, but no tuition fees are paid.”

Ndukuya said her student union, the biggest in the country, is worried that UNESWA’s monetary crisis is going to affect the quality of education at the institution. She said the university is no longer fit for learning because it is unable to provide necessities.

Peter Ngwenya, a member of parliament and the parliamentary portfolio committee on education, said UNESWA should be weaned off government support. “UNESWA, as I see it,” he said, “should be autonomous. They shouldn’t depend on subventions all the time.”