Astonishing! That’s the only word I can think of to describe Barnabas Dlamini’s claim that the award he received in the Bahamas from disgraced conman Rudy King was legitimate.
Dlamini, Swaziland’s illegally-appointed Prime Minister, said this even though it was revealed that King’s World Citizen Awards (WCA) organisation was a sham and the people King said were its trustees (and were the judges for the award) publicly said they had nothing to do with WCA and had never heard of it.
Despite this evidence that Dlamini had been taken for a fool, he still maintains the medal for humanitarian work was valid.
Dlamini spoke to reporters on his return to Swaziland yesterday (14 October 2010). The Times of Swaziland, the only independent daily newspaper in the kingdom, reported him saying, just because Rudy King ‘had a colourful past did not mean he could not have rehabilitated himself’.
Dlamini went on to say the award was legitimate because previous Prime Minister, Absalom Themba Dlamini, the Speaker of the House of Assembly, Prince Guduza, and former Justice and Constitutional Affairs Minister, Prince David, had all been recipients of the award in the past.
Dlamini said, ‘Dr King firstly explained his history to us and said he was not proud of his past, but just because he had a bad history did not mean one could not rehabilitate himself.’
He said King further told them, in actual fact, few people were proud of their past and he was a changed man which is why he had established the foundation.
But Mr Prime Minister, he would say that wouldn’t he? - because he is a conman.
As I say, Astonishing. Dlamini has made a complete fool of himself and he has done it in the glare of international publicity. He is supposed to be a leader of a nation but how could anyone inside Swaziland or on the world stage trust his judgement ever again?
It’s time for Dlamini to go before he does any more damage to Swaziland.
No comments:
Post a Comment