MBABANE – Workers employed by the Sincephetelo Motor Vehicle Accident (MVA) Fund have the rare privilege of choosing clothes worth E5 000 or more at the employers’ expense.
They get vouchers each year to buy clothes from Luciano Men’s Boutique. This is referred to as uniform allowance and is paid as an extra perk, on top of their salaries. This shop is famous for its quality and stylish clothing.
The Times SUNDAY has established that the minimum amount given to staff members to buy clothes, so that they look presentable, is E5 000.
Others get more. The public enterprise employs more than 69 people.
This means that it allegedly spends more than E345 000 on this exercise on an annual basis.
Some of the senior staff at MVA are allegedly allocated more E6 500 because of their seniority.
However, it has been established, from reliable sources, that Luciano only caters for about 24 male staff members of the parastatal.
The females get the same amount in vouchers, even though they reportedly utilise other suppliers for their clothes. One of these is Image Makers, a corporate wear supplier based in South Africa.
Female staffers at MVA wear uniform, provided at the expense of their generous employer.
During an intense investigation by the Times SUNDAY, it was established that Luciano Men’s Boutique was identified as the shop where male employees of the fund got their apparel.
This was made possible through a facility provided by the boutique for the benefit of employees.
The MVA Fund’s core business is to compensate victims of motor vehicle accidents on the country’s roads.
This newspaper also established that this facility – uniform allowance – was also provided by other public enterprises to their staff members.
These are companies wholly owned by government and funded through taxpayers’ contributions. Olisy Dourando, a Sales Executive at Luciano Men’s Boutique in Mbabane, reluctantly confirmed that employees from the MVA Fund indeed had such a facility.
He said a list of employees was given to them by the organisation for them to choose clothing, mostly formal wear.
Dourando said many other companies, such as the Public Service Pension Fund (PSPF) and Swaziland Electricity Company (SEC), also got clothing from the same shop.
However, he stated that their biggest client was the MVA, as SEC only issued their employees vouchers worth less than the Fund’s.