ATTACK ON LYING SWAZI GOVERNMENT

The Swazi Government is under attack for lying to the United Nations about poverty and hunger in the kingdom.

It doctored a report on how much progress Swaziland has made on reaching the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) and changed it from ‘not likely’ to meet the target of ‘eradication of extreme poverty and hunger’ and made it read it could ‘potentially’ meet the target.

The Director of the Coordinating Assembly of Non Governmental Organisations (CANGO) Emmanuel Ndlangamandla, said CANGO and a number of stakeholders who represent all sectors of society had contributed to the drafting of the report, so the report did not just belong to government or the UN but it belongs to the Swazi nation.

Ndlangamandla told the Times of Swaziland, the only independent daily newspaper in the kingdom, ‘When drafting this report we looked at the scenarios based on the evidence on the ground, and we aspired to produce a document that would provide us with an opportunity for national reflection.'

He added, ‘What government has done is really unfortunate, especially because the draft report did not undermine government in any way. All over the continent countries are struggling with these goals. Why shouldn’t we be frank about our situation here? How are we going to get assistance now?’.

The Times also reported that the government also doctored the part of the UN report that said Swaziland would not meet the target to reduce by three quarters the maternal mortality ratio. The Government changed it to say the kingdom ‘might’ meet the target.