King Mswati III of Swaziland snubbed the newly-opened airport
that bears his name and landed his private jet at the old Matsapha Airport on
his return from a trip to Qatar.
The King opened
the airport, formerly known as Sikhuphe, and widely regarded by his critics
as a personal ‘vanity project’, in early March 2014, but since then no
commercial airline has landed at the airport and none has agreed to use it in
future.
King Mswati said the airport, which has been built in the
wilderness of south-east Swaziland at a cost of at least E3 billion (US$300
million) was a ‘first-world’
facility.
Members of the public have been banned from visiting the
airport for ‘security
reasons’, according to the Swaziland
Civil Aviation Authority (SWACAA). SWACAA
Director Solomon Dube said the
King wanted people to stay away so the airport could remain in ‘sublime
condition’.
No reason has been given by King Mswati why he did
not use the new airport on his trip to Qatar.
However, there are doubts about whether the
airport has a licence to operate. In late March 2014, after the King had
opened the airport the Regional Director of the International Civil
Aviation Organisation (ICAO), Meshesha Belayneh, told the Open Society Initiative
for Southern Africa (OSISA)
in South Africa that Swaziland still needed to follow due process before
the ICAO could issue a licence for the new airport.
The Swazi airport has been dubbed King Mswati’s ‘vanity
project’ by critics. King Mswati rules Swaziland as sub-Saharan Africa’s last
absolute monarch. The King has 13 palaces and a personal fortune once estimated
by Forbes Magazine to be US$200 million. Meanwhile, seven in ten of his
subjects live in abject poverty with an income of less than US$2 a day.
Swaziland has the highest rate of HIV infection in the world.
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