More than E1 million is to be spent on providing 14 portable toilets for next week’s birthday party for Swaziland’s King Mswati III.
The Weekend Observer reports today that ‘E95 000 is required for each of the 14 mobile toilets needed’. It goes on to list the other sanitary expenses.
He newspaper reports, ‘E173 000 is needed for hiring 10 of 10 000 litre water tanks over the same period [three days]. E94 500 is required for 100 bales of toilet paper, whilst E5 500 is needed for 10 of 25 litre liquid soap. For five boxes of sunlight soap E7 100 is sought, while E7 900 is required for detergents, amongst other things.’ It reckons more than E2 million will be spent in total on sanitary arrangements.
The newspaper calls this cost ‘shocking’, which it is, but it doesn’t say why it is ‘shocking’.
I am pleased that the newspaper published these costs, but it needed to take a further step to make it clear to readers exactly what is going on.
Think of it like this. According to the figures quoted by the Weekend Observer each portable toilet costs E95 000 which is about 1,400 US dollars each. A quick search of the Internet reveals that portable toilets can be hired at a cost starting at 70 US dollars a day (about E500). That means that each of Swaziland’s celebration toilets are overpriced to a tune of E85 500 or (1 330 US dollars).
Even allowing that there may be some shipping costs involved in getting the toilets to the sites where they are needed this is still a vastly inflated price.
What we must now know is who is supplying the toilets, who ordered them and who is getting the kickback for the contract?
Once we’ve sorted that out, we can tackle the cost of the soap and detergent. Again, the prices are hugely inflated. You would get a better deal nipping into the local supermarket.
Now is the time for the media to name names. People are lining their own pockets at the expense of ordinary poor Swazi people – and it must be stopped. Now.
To see the full Weekend Observer report click here.
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