It’s Fantasy Watch time again. Or maybe more truthfully it’s Reality Watch time.
To nobody’s surprise news has emerged that the E350 million ‘plan’ to redevelop Manzini’s Old Trade Fair as a shopping complex has ‘fizzled out’.
The Swazi Observer, the newspaper in effect owned by King Mswati III, and the paper that is one of the leading cheerleaders for these fantasy projects, reports that the plan has come to nothing because developers couldn’t raise the money.
No kidding. As I’ve been saying for some time now the media in Swaziland and the king’s hangers-on should stop misleading the Swazi people into thinking that the kingdom can afford grand new airports, six-star hotels, business complexes, shopping malls and sports stadia.
It can’t. Swaziland is broke. Most of the people are dirt poor and a total economic meltdown is on the horizon.
The Observer called the Old Trade Fair plan a white elephant. When will the journalists admit that this is not an isolated incident? There’s a whole herd of white elephants out there.
Footnote: Can someone explain why the Observer reported the news this week, when the Times of Swaziland, the kingdom’s only independent daily newspaper, ran the story last April?
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