Monarchy a luxury that
Swaziland cannot afford
Kenworthy
News Media, 9 May 2016
Swaziland’s
big-spending absolute monarch King Mswati III is spending millions of dollars
on a new personal jet and other luxuries, while many of his poor citizens rely
on food aid to survive, writes Kenworthy News Media.
“The
monarchy is a luxury that Swazi’s cannot afford. It is like a blood-sucking
parasite that has sucked its host dry”, says Swazi activist Bheki Dlamini.
He is
doing a Masters in Public Administration, is President of the banned Swaziland
Youth Congress and spent nearly 4 years in a small filthy cell in one of King
Mswati’s prisons. The charges against him were soon dropped once his case
finally went to court, but he subsequently had to flee the country because he
criticized the government in a speech.
One
example of the opulence of King Mswati is that he is presently buying a new jet
for US$ 13 million of public money during a drought that has seen a large part
of the population receiving food aid from the UN to survive, says Bheki
Dlamini.
Land is
central
Swaziland is an absolute monarchy that is not unlike a medieval feudal state.
In a report on the country from 2013, called “Swaziland: a failed feudal
state”, American research NGO Freedom House speaks of the “shocking realities
of oppression, abject poverty, hunger and disease” in a country where the king
has seized “private and public property for his personal benefit” while being
“immune from civil suits and criminal prosecution”.
At
independence land and mining rights were granted to the monarch and not the
government or the people, Bheki Dlamini explains.
“Just
before independence in 1968, a fund were set up to buy back land from the
British colonialists that gave birth to Tibiyo Taka Ngwane [that has stakes or
shares in agriculture, property, a printing company and the Swazi Observer
newspaper et al] and Tisuka Taka Ngwane [a residential and commercial property
developer]. But these two public companies have been taken away from the
Swazi’s and tuned out to be royal purse. The land that was bought is now royal
land it was never returned to the people for the development of local
communities”.
The king
rules supreme
Today King Mswati therefore controls over half of the land, as well as the
parliament and judiciary. He also has a personal fortune of $100-200 million,
receives over $30 million a year from the taxpayers, and generally leads a
playboy lifestyle with his umpteen wives and many palaces.
He is a
shareholder of many of Swaziland’s companies, from which he receives a
considerable percentage of the profit. Ordinary citizens, on the other hand,
have no security of tenure in a country where 75 percent depend on subsistence
farming for their survival.
Many are
therefore evicted, whenever the king or his chiefs want to use the land for
vanity projects such as Mswati’s new international airport. Control of the land
and economy is therefore at the centre of the struggle that rural people face
on a daily basis, says Bheki Dlamini, who himself comes from the rural areas.
Political
and economic control
Apart
from agriculture, much of Swaziland’s use of land and wealth comes from the
utilization of other natural resources such a sugar, coal, gold and iron ore.
“25
percent of everything from the mines goes to the Monarchy. But for what? These
huge resources could be best utilised under the national treasury. What is the
local community benefiting in Maloma, where coal is mined? What did the
community benefit in Ngwenya where Iron Ore was being mined? What is the
country benefiting in the recently opened Lufafa Gold mine? Nothing except
degradation of the environment and exploitation of workers. All this is meant
to soothe the insatiable appetite of a greedy monarchy”.
Bheki
Dlamini believes that the resources that are currently being looted by the
monarchy could go a long way in eradicating poverty and lack of development in
Swaziland. But for this to happen, Swazis must gain control over both the
political and economic system.
“The
solution to economic emancipation lies with us Swazis, but the struggle for
multiparty democracy must never be about voting rights only. The real struggle
is on changing the unequal distribution of our resources”, Bheki Dlamini
concludes.