It would take seven-out-of-ten Swazis at least three
years to earn the price of the shoes trimmed with jewels worn by one of King
Mswati III’s 13 wives at a lunch in the UK.
Inkhosikati LaMbikiza, the King’s first wife, wore shoes
that cost £995 (US$1,559) to a lunch hosted by the UK’s Queen Elizabeth II to
mark her Diamond Jubilee, earlier this month (May 2012).
Her shoes were described by reporters as a ‘rather
eye-catching pair of Pearly Queen-style shoes with feathery pom-poms on the
toes and heels.’ They were trimmed with jewels, sequins and feathers.
She also wore a black and white spotted dress with
feathery trimmings to match her shoes and a grey clutch bag.
The King is regularly criticised in media across the
globe for his extravagant lifestyle. Media in Swaziland, where King Mswati is
sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, dare not criticise him. Last week
the Times of Swaziland, the only
independent daily newspaper in the kingdom, featured a report about LaMbikiza’s
shoes, gushing that she had received ‘rave reviews’ for her dress sense while
in the UK.
In Swaziland, seven-in-ten of King Mswati’s subjects are
so poor they cannot afford shoes of any kind. They earn less than US$2 a day
and it would take them at least 779 working days, or three years, to earn the
price of LaMbikiza’s shoes.
While more than half of Swaziland’s 1.1 million
population rely on some form of food aid to keep them from hunger, King Mswati
has 13 palaces in Swaziland, one for each of his wives; fleets of BMW and
Mercedes cars and at least one Rolls Royce. Last month, for his 44th birthday
he received a private jet worth US$17 million as a gift. He refused to reveal
who bought it for him, leading to speculation that it was paid for out of
public funds.
The cost of the King’s five-day trip to the UK for the
Diamond Jubilee has been estimated to be at least US$794,500.
Picture of LaMbikiza’s shoes: The Daily Beast
See also
KING’S TRIP TO LONDON ‘COST US$794,500’
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