King Mswati III of Swaziland has lost another round in
a long-running
court dispute over an alleged unpaid bill of US$3.5 million for improvements
and repairs to his private jet.
SG Air Leasing and SG Commodities Trading, two
companies associated with businessman Shanmuga Rethenam, popularly known as
Shan, have been chasing the King through courts in Canada and the British
Virgin Islands for the money they allege is owed by the King and a company he
solely owns called Inchatsavane.
At one time the King’s DC-9-87 private jet was
impounded in Canada while courts decided on its future. The jet has since
been released but the King was required to place US$3.5 million in a trust
account in Canada pending the final decision of the court.
On 5 May 2016, the Ontario Superior Court of Justice
ordered that the money must remain in the trust account. It also ruled that
King Mswati and Inchatsavane must not dispose of the aircraft until the matter
is settled by the court.
On Sunday (15 May 2016), the Times
Sunday, an independent newspaper in Swaziland, where King Msawti rules
as sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, reported the Swazi Prime
Minister Barnabas Dlamini saying the DC-9-87 would not be sold.
The newspaper said the decision had been taken after a ‘due diligence
process of business viability analysis’.
It added, ‘He said it was decided that the aircraft would make a lot of
money being leased out to private clients in its customised state.’
The Swazi Government has already announced it will buy
the King a A340-300 jet from China Airlines in Taiwan at a cost of about
US$13 million.
Swaziland is presently in the grip of a drought and 300,000 of the
population’s 1.3 million people are in need of food and other aid. The Swazi
Government has appealed to the international community for financial assistance.
About seven in ten of the population live in abject poverty with incomes
of less than US$2 a day.
See also
SWAZI
MPs ABOUT-TURN ON KING’S JET
MONEY
FOR KING’S JET, BUT NOT DROUGHT
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