Speech Dispatcher failing to start on Arch Linux

I use pulseaudio on my system. I have installed the tts applications espeak and flite. Both of which work perfectly when called from the commandline, but fail to work when called via spd-say. I need them to work via spd-say, because I want to configure a TTS engine for Okular. Here is the output for sudo systemctl status speech-dispatcherd.service

● speech-dispatcherd.service - Speech-Dispatcher an high-level device independent layer for speech synthesis.
   Loaded: loaded (/usr/lib/systemd/system/speech-dispatcherd.service; disabled; vendor preset: disabled)
   Active: failed (Result: exit-code) since Fri 2019-01-18 00:30:18 IST; 2min 9s ago
  Process: 1067 ExecStart=/usr/bin/speech-dispatcher -d (code=exited, status=1/FAILURE)

Jan 18 00:30:18 archlinux-hostname systemd: Starting Speech-Dispatcher an high-level device independent layer for speech synthesis....
Jan 18 00:30:18 archlinux-hostname speech-dispatcher: [Fri Jan 18 00:30:18 2019 : 363344] speechd: Speech Dispatcher 0.8.8 starting
Jan 18 00:30:18 archlinux-hostname systemd: speech-dispatcherd.service: Control process exited, code=exited, status=1/FAILURE
Jan 18 00:30:18 archlinux-hostname systemd: speech-dispatcherd.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
Jan 18 00:30:18 archlinux-hostname systemd: Failed to start Speech-Dispatcher an high-level device independent layer for speech synthesis..

Here is the output for journalctl -xe

➜ journalctl -xe

Jan 18 00:30:18 archlinux-hostname sudo:       codingcoffee : TTY=pts/1 ; PWD=/home/codingcoffee ; USER=root ; COMMAND=/usr/bin/systemctl restart speech-dispatcherd.service
Jan 18 00:30:18 archlinux-hostname sudo: pam_unix(sudo:session): session opened for user root by codingcoffee(uid=0)
Jan 18 00:30:18 archlinux-hostname systemd: Starting Speech-Dispatcher an high-level device independent layer for speech synthesis....
-- Subject: A start job for unit speech-dispatcherd.service has begun execution
-- Defined-By: systemd
-- Support: https://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/systemd-devel 
-- 
-- A start job for unit speech-dispatcherd.service has begun execution.
-- 
-- The job identifier is 4254.
Jan 18 00:30:18 archlinux-hostname speech-dispatcher: [Fri Jan 18 00:30:18 2019 : 363344] speechd: Speech Dispatcher 0.8.8 starting
Jan 18 00:30:18 archlinux-hostname systemd: speech-dispatcherd.service: Control process exited, code=exited, status=1/FAILURE
-- Subject: Unit process exited
-- Defined-By: systemd
-- Support: https://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/systemd-devel 
-- 
-- An ExecStart= process belonging to unit speech-dispatcherd.service has exited.
-- 
-- The process' exit code is 'exited' and its exit status is 1.
Jan 18 00:30:18 archlinux-hostname systemd: speech-dispatcherd.service: Failed with result 'exit-code'.
-- Subject: Unit failed
-- Defined-By: systemd
-- Support: https://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/systemd-devel 
-- 
-- The unit speech-dispatcherd.service has entered the 'failed' state with result 'exit-code'.
Jan 18 00:30:18 archlinux-hostname systemd: Failed to start Speech-Dispatcher an high-level device independent layer for speech synthesis..
-- Subject: A start job for unit speech-dispatcherd.service has failed
-- Defined-By: systemd
-- Support: https://lists.freedesktop.org/mailman/listinfo/systemd-devel 
-- 
-- A start job for unit speech-dispatcherd.service has finished with a failure.
-- 
-- The job identifier is 4254 and the job result is failed.
Jan 18 00:30:18 archlinux-hostname audit: SERVICE_START pid=1 uid=0 auid=4294967295 ses=4294967295 msg='unit=speech-dispatcherd comm="systemd" exe="/usr/lib/systemd/systemd" hostname=? addr=? terminal=? res=fail>
Jan 18 00:30:18 archlinux-hostname kernel: audit: type=1130 audit(1547751618.383:189): pid=1 uid=0 auid=4294967295 ses=4294967295 msg='unit=speech-dispatcherd comm="systemd" exe="/usr/lib/systemd/systemd" hostname=>
Jan 18 00:30:18 archlinux-hostname sudo: pam_unix(sudo:session): session closed for user root
Jan 18 00:30:19 archlinux-hostname sudo:       codingcoffee : TTY=pts/1 ; PWD=/home/codingcoffee ; USER=root ; COMMAND=/usr/bin/systemctl status speech-dispatcherd.service
Jan 18 00:30:19 archlinux-hostname sudo: pam_unix(sudo:session): session opened for user root by codingcoffee(uid=0)
Jan 18 00:30:19 archlinux-hostname sudo: pam_unix(sudo:session): session closed for user root

Here is the output to my speech-dispatcher config file ~/.config/speech-dispatcher/speechd.conf

LogLevel  3
LogDir  "default"
DefaultRate   0
DefaultPitch   0  
DefaultVolume 100
DefaultLanguage   en
AudioOutputMethod   pulse
DefaultModule   espeak
Include "clients/*.conf"