BY MBONO MDLULI
MBABANE – The Ministry of Finance will continue to support the Ministry of Health, especially when it comes to matters pertaining to the procurement of drugs.
This was said by Minister of Finance Neal Rijkenberg when he appeared before the senators who are members of the Ministry of Finance portfolio committee. Minister Rijkenberg appeared before the senators in the House of Assembly on March 19, 2025.
The aim of his appearance was for the debate of the 2024/25 annual performance of the Ministry of Finance. Rijkenberg said his Ministry would continue to support the Health Ministry because its mandate was critical, as it was to ensure that lives of the members of the public were not disturbed in any way. The minister highlighted that what was important here was that the drug supplies were done by business people who were Emaswati.
The minister further told the senators that Government was improving in the payment of suppliers. He said there was a time when the suppliers were owed around E6 billion by Government. He was responding to a question that had been posed by Senator Princess Ncengencenge, who wanted to know what the real cause was for Government to fail to honour its debts in time to these suppliers.
What concerned Princess Ncengencenge was that there was a time when such problems did not exist. She wondered why they now existed, all of a sudden. What further worried the senator was that when the suppliers were not paid in time, many people risked losing jobs and many people suffered at the end.
Minister Rijkenberg also remarked that it would be difficult for Govenrment to pay subventions to The Luke Commission (TLC). He said a model that would be better would be the public-private partnership (PPP), as the money needed to subvent TLC was way too high. He was responding to concerns raised by senators regarding the health institution, stating that the subvention could be unsustainable.
