BY MBONO MDLULI
LOBAMBA – The closure of the Trading Account belonging to the Central Transport Administration (CTA) has come under scrutiny.
This is because the Ministry of Agriculture has, on April 15, 2025, complained before the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) that it was unable to provide services because vehicles were either not fueled or they were not serviced by the CTA, leading to the vehicles being in a state where they could no longer be usable.
The CTA, which is under the Ministry of Public Works and Transport, is responsible for ensuring that all Government vehicles are in good condition. The department is also responsible for fixing Government vehicles when they develop mechanical faults and it is also responsible for providing fuel for the vehicles.
Zombodze Emuva Member of Parliament (MP) Ntando Mkhonta is the one who wanted to know if the closure of the trading account was not the cause of the complaints forwarded by the Ministry of Agriculture about the CTA.
Mkhonta said they were told that the Ministry of Finance had been able to make savings of about E300 million because of the closure of the trading account. He said as much as the savings could be good, but the legislator was of the view that the savings should not come at the expense of service delivery.
In response, CTA General Transport Manager (GTM) Mduduzi Lukhele said the closure of the trading account was not problematic on its own. What was problematic was that there was nothing in place that would be used to ensure the smooth operation of the CTA.
The problems at CTA were further highlighted by MP Tsembeni Magongo, who pleaded with Lukhele to ensure that when he spoke about the problems taking place at CTA, he should leave no stone unturned. This would help in solving the real problems that were causing Government ministries not to function. Magongo said she came from a certain Government ministry, where she served for 40 years. They had problems where their vehicles would be grounded simply because there was no fuel.
Sometime, the vehicles would be grounded because their batteries were malfunctioning. The problems, according to Magongo, would take time to be solved and they would not understand why such was the case. She said sometimes, they had to use their own money to fuel vehicles because they did not want to go to areas like Nhlangano to fuel cars there, as they worked around the Mbabane-Manzini corridor. She pleaded with the CTA to address the problems as soon as possible.
Somntongo MP Sandile Nxumalo pleaded with the Ministry of Agriculture to be quick to address these matters because Emaswati were the ones that suffered the most. He further called upon the CTA to ensure the availability of fuel because they were not able to work in their constituencies. He said in Somntongo, they had asked for machines such as the TLBs, but they were told there was not fuel.
Nxumalo said they had been waiting for the availability of the fuel for more than a year now. PAC Deputy Chairperson Manzi Zwane, who was chairing the PAC session, said he had been facing such a predicament for more than five years now in Nhlambeni, where he was elected as an MP. He furher pleaded with the CTA to sort out the problem because the Ministry of Agriculture was very important in the lives of Emaswati. The Ministry had a mandate of achieving food sovereignty and this could not happen if fuel problems kept persisting.
