SENATE President Pastor Lindiwe Dlamini says as parliamentarians, they were accountable to the public hence the need for them to be considerate when enacting laws.
Dlamini, however, cautioned against cultivating a culture of heavy reliance on access to free government services stating that user fees were a necessity for improving government revenue streams, while ensuring that Emaswati value the services provided by government and not just expect everything for free.
This was during the Senate Finance Portfolio Committee clause by clause session on The Finance (Amendment) Bill, 2025 on Monday.
The objective of the Bill is to impose, alter and amend certain enactments relating to taxes, duties levies and fees, catering for incidental matters.
Some of the user fees to be increased by the passing of the Bill include toll fees on motor vehicles entering Eswatini through borders shared with the Republic of South Africa, driving licence testing centre fees, vehicle testing centre fees, police fees as well as Eswatini travel document fees among others.
Senate Finance Portfolio Committee Chairperson, Senator Tony Sibandze explained that some of the fees were new while other fees were already included in the Finance Act of 2019.
“Some of the new fees include cross border permits, police reports and post-mortem reports among others,” said Sibandze.
He said during the stakeholder engagements exercise, representatives from the University of Eswatini proposed that the revenue collected from the road user fees should be remitted to the Roads Authority Fund and not deposited in the Government Consolidated Fund.
The Senator said this would ensure that the funds collected from road user fees were used for the maintenance of the country’s road infrastructure. Sibandze also mentioned that representatives from the transport industry raised concerns that they were not engaged by the government during the review of the Act as some fees increased from E50 to E450 which was about a 400 per cent increase.
He said the transport industry representatives said if Parliament was in favour of increasing fees such as those paid by locally registered commercial motor vehicles crossing from South Africa into Eswatini with the highest fee expected to increase from E50 to a proposed E400, they were willing to pay.
They however said it was unfair on them as some locally registered trucks were not charged yet they used the same roads as them and sometimes travelled longer distances.
Sibandze added that the user fees for travel documents would also increase with the highest fee of E700 for a 64 page passport.
He stated that there were some concerns raised by stakeholders who argued that this would have a negative effect on vendors who frequently travelled to and from neighbouring countries.
Senate President Lindiwe Dlamini said what Sibandze had presented to them made sense. She however proposed that it was important to consider staggered increases of the fees.
“It is important for us to consider how this can be done smoothly without overburdening Emaswati.
It is also important to take into consideration the cost for government to provide these services,” said Dlamini.
The senate president said it was equally important for them to ensure that Emaswati valued the services provided by government and curb the culture of reliance on free government services as it was costly to provide them.
Stakeholders
Dlamini said it was important for them as legislators to listen to and consider all the concerns raised by stakeholders.
Her sentiments were shared by Senators Prince Mphatfwa and Senator Chief Zabeni Shiba, who said the concerns raised were valid and it was up to them to find a common ground.
Senator Siphelele Mkhonta, also Deputy Chairperson of the Finance Portfolio Committee supported the Senate president.
Weighing in on the proposed road user fees, Senator Mkhonta said the concerns raised by the transport industry were valid and it was unfair to put the blame for destroying the road infrastructure solely on them.
He said it was up to government to construct quality roads and invest in constructing weighbridges to generate revenue.
After a lengthy debate on the road transport proposed fees which were a big concern, the Senators resolved to amend the proposed toll fees with the lowest fee being E80 and the highest being E150.
This was in contrary to the amendment made by the House of Assembly who set the lowest fee at E80 with the highest fees set at E200.
The Senators also included an amendment that the fee should be applied once a day following concerns that some vehicles made more than one trip in and out of the country which could be expensive for them in the long run.
