The airport, formerly
known as Sikhuphe, was opened in March 2014. The construction cost was
estimated to be US$250 million, but fewer
than 150 passengers a day fly out of the airport, which is built in a
wilderness. Only one airline uses the airport for a route to Johannesburg in
neighbouring South Africa.
Now, Swaziland Civil
Aviation Authority (SWACAA) Director General Solomon Dube has told businesspeople
that there are plans to establish a city near the airport. In its report on the
matter, the Swazi Observer, a
newspaper in effect owned by the King, called it a ‘glittering’ plan. It reported on Friday
(18 September 2015) the plan would include, ‘opportunities such as hotels,
hospitals, malls and other permanent structures which can be found in cities
will be available’.
The talking-up of the
airport is nothing new. By any objective criteria, the
airport has been a failure, but it was the brainchild of King Mswati III
himself who rules Swaziland as sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch and
this failure is ignored within his kingdom.
The airport was built in
an attempt to support the King’s claim that his kingdom would be a ‘First World’
nation by 2022. At present seven in ten of the 1.3 population live in abject
poverty, with incomes of less than US$2 a day.
The city is not the only
recent grandiose plan to be announced in Swaziland. Last month (August 2015),
the Swazi Government, which is unelected and handpicked by the King, announced
its support for a US$3
billion scheme to build a seaport in the landlocked kingdom connected to
the coast of Mozambique by canal.
See also
U-TURN
ON SUCCESS OF KING’S AIRPORT
SWAZI
GOVT STANDS BY FLAWED PORT PLANS
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