The luxury
trip to Florida costing about US$1 million by at least three of the wives
of King Mswati III of Swaziland and an entourage of about 100 people continues
a tradition of lavish spending by sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch
and his family.
The Queens are on a week-long trip to the US state. Their
trips are always shrouded in secrecy and the media in Swaziland never report
them. Not so, the international media and social media.
Here are details of some of the Swazi Royal Family’s
most extravagant trips in recent years. King Mswati rules over a population of
1.2 million; seven in ten live in abject poverty with incomes of less than US$2
a day.
In 2013, several of the King’s wives – he is estimated
to have 14, but the exact number remains a secret –
travelled to Japan and Australia on a trip estimated to have cost US$10
million.
In 2012, they went on vacation to the gambling
capital of the world, Las Vegas in the United States. On that occasion
three of the wives were accompanied by an entourage of 55 people. Prodemocracy
activists reported they stayed in 10 villas at the cost of US$2,400 per villa
per night.
In 2010,
a group of the king’s wives went on what was described at the time as
‘another multi-million-dollar international shopping spree’ to Brussels in
Belgium and London, UK. About 80 other people went on the trip to tend to the needs of the
queens.
In August
2009, five of King Mswati’s wives went on a shopping trip through Europe
and the Middle East that cost an estimated US$6 million.
At the time media in Swaziland were warned not to report on the trip
because it would harm the king’s reputation. Media houses were told they would
face sanctions, including possible closure, if word got out. But newspapers and
websites across the world followed the story.
The Times of London, for
example, reported how the queens went on a shopping spree while the subjects of
King Mswati went hungry. The Australian newspaper said the
king ignored the Swazi poor and the newspaper reminded readers that Swaziland
relied on international aid from the European Union and the United States.
The previous year in August 2008 when a group of the king’s wives went
on a similar shopping spree ordinary Swazi women were so outraged that they took to the streets of Swaziland in protest.
King Mswati does not accompany his wives on these trips. However, he is
known to spend lavishly on himself and his wives when he does make trips. A
typical example was in April 2011 when he went to London to attend the wedding
of Prince William to Kate Middleton. The cost of the plane alone to take him to
the UK cost the Swazi people US$700,000.
The following year he was back in London to attend a lunch to mark the
Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II. He took with him his first wife
Inkhosikati LaMbikiza. She wore to the lunch shoes trimmed with jewels that
cost £995 (US$1,559). It would take seven-out-of-ten Swazis at least three
years to earn the price of the shoes.
The cost of the King’s five-day trip to the UK for the
Diamond Jubilee was estimated to be at least US$794,500.
The extravagant spending came just as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) criticised
Swaziland for diverting money that should have been used on education and
health to other spending.
As a result of this spending the IMF withdrew its team that was advising
the government on economic recovery from Swaziland.
The King is regularly criticised in media across the globe for his
extravagant lifestyle, but media in Swaziland dare not criticise him. At the
time of the visit to the Diamond Jubilee the Times of Swaziland, the only independent daily newspaper in the
kingdom, featured a report about LaMbikiza’s shoes, gushing that she had
received ‘rave reviews’ from a UK newspaper for her dress sense.
It did not, however, say that the same newspaper reported, ‘Guests from controversial
regimes include Swaziland’s King Mswati III, who has been accused of living an
obscenely lavish lifestyle while many of his people starve.’
While more than half of the Swazi population rely on some form of food aid to keep them from hunger, King Mswati has 13 palaces in Swaziland; fleets of BMW and Mercedes cars and at least one Rolls Royce.
While more than half of the Swazi population rely on some form of food aid to keep them from hunger, King Mswati has 13 palaces in Swaziland; fleets of BMW and Mercedes cars and at least one Rolls Royce.
Earlier in July 2016 it was revealed the King was about to receive a
375-seater private jet at an estimated cost of US$14 million, paid for by the
Swazi Government, which the King handpicked.
See also
KING’S SPENDING: U.S. ‘MIGHT HALT AID’
SWAZI CENSORSHIP
ON KING’S UK TRIP
http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2012/05/swazi-censorship-on-kings-uk-trip.html
SWAZI QUEENS OFF ON SHOPPING SPREE
http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2012/07/swazi-queens-off-on-shopping-spree.html
SWAZI QUEENS OFF ON SHOPPING SPREE
No comments:
Post a Comment