Information just released by the International Monetary
Fund (IMF) confirms that Swaziland’s Finance Minister Majozi Sithole lied when
he said the kingdom’s economy had recovered.
Last month (January 2013), Sithole said that receipts of
E12.2 billion (US$1.1 billion) due this year to Swaziland, mostly from the
Southern African Customs Union (SACU), meant, ‘I can safely say the economy is
now under control. We have survived the worst economic challenges ever.’
Then, earlier this month, the Times of Swaziland newspaper falsely reported in a headline, ‘Financial crisis in Swaziland is over –
IMF’. It said, ‘It is now official; Swaziland is out of the financial
crisis it had plunged into since 2010, the IMF has declared.’
The paper then allowed Sithole to say, ‘We have no
problems with their assessment that we are out of the crisis.’
But, it was not true. The IMF had never said such a thing.
Now, this week, the IMF published one of its regular assessments of the state of
Swaziland’s economy, based on information gathered after a visit to the
kingdom.
The IMF reported the Swaziland economy ‘will be
unsustainable over the medium term and subject to significant downside risks’.
It said there needed to be ‘upfront expenditure cuts, including on the wage
bill’.
The IMF said that in the recent past the government had
repaid some of its debt but this was ‘partly achieved through cuts in
education, health, and other poverty-alleviating spending’.
To underline the fragile state of the economy, the IMF
said, ‘Swaziland’s economic prospects remain difficult and that, without
credible and comprehensive fiscal adjustment and structural reforms, the
current fiscal and external position will be unsustainable over the medium term
and subject to significant downside risks.’
Sithole has yet to respond publicly to the news.
See also
‘TIMES’ LIES OVER ECONOMIC RECOVERY
ECONOMY: IMPOSSIBLE TO CUT POVERTY
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