KWALUSENI: Hearings of public submissions of the problems plaguing the University of Eswatini (UNESWA) have been thrown open to the public. From this morning, members of the public and the media can sit in the hearings and report on them.
The Task Force appointed by the Ministry of Education seeks to understand why the Kingdom’s principal institution of higher learning lurches from one crisis to another.
The University is currently closed. Students protested to demand delayed scholarship allowances. When it should have opened this week, water supply was cut off, rendering the institution dry and unfit for human habitation. At the same time, the University union also issued the administration with a strike notice to suspend services from 18 October. They are demanding restoration of medical aid suspended after the administration failed to pay the medical insurance, the union says, despite having deducted employee contributions.
Expected to submit their views today includes three key stakeholders. These are the UNESWA Council Chair, Chief Mkhumbi Dlamini. The chairman of the university’s management committee and representatives of the staff association.
The hearings were initially planned to be held in camera. This rule has been upset by the tribunal Chairman Muzi Siyaya who decided to conduct open hearings. Hearings start in the morning till 5pm at the UNESWA conference room.