SWAZILAND GOVERNANCE APPALLING

The Swaziland Government is once again denying that the kingdom has an atrocious human rights record and an appalling scorecard on governance.

The latest report showing Swaziland’s position on governance is from the US-based Millennium Challenge Corporation (MCC), which looked at whether nations are ‘ruling justly’, ‘investing in people’ and on ‘economic freedom.’

Here are some of the scores that Swaziland received (marks are out of 100).

Ruling Justly

Political rights (3)

Civil liberties (10)

Government effectiveness (17)

Rule of law (17)

Voice and accountability (17)

Economic freedom

Regulatory quality (23)

Land rights and access (9)

Business start up (14)

Trade policy (32)

According to the Swazi Observer yesterday (5 January 2009), the Swaziland Deputy Prime Minister Themba Masuku has challenged the findings of the MCC.

This is the standard response of the Swazi Government when faced with the truth about its appalling record.

In October 2007, I wrote at some length about how the government denied the findings of the Mo Ibrahim Foundation, which used about 50 sources of information in a report showing up Swaziland’s poor record. The Swazi Government tried to make it out that Mo Ibrahim was a ‘fly by night’ organisation and promised a detailed rebuttal of the report.

As far as I know such a rebuttal was never published.

So it is with the latest MCC report, the Swazi Government can deny all it wants, but the truth is out there for all to see.

(To read what I wrote last time click here).