More than 80 percent of
women aged 60 and over and 70 percent of men in Swaziland live in poverty,
according to a new report.
This comes at a time when
the Swazi Government has run out of money and cannot pay elderly grants
(pensions) to all people in that age group.
The figures are contained
in the National Strategy and Action Plan to End Violence in Swaziland: 2017 to
2022.
About seven in ten of
Swaziland’s 1.3 million population live in abject poverty defined as having incomes
less than the equivalent of US$2 per day. The report said poverty among people
aged 60 or over was highest compared to other age groups.
The Swazi Observer newspaper on Thursday (7 December 2017) quoted the
report, ‘Whilst the elderly are now receiving social grants, they continue to
be subjected to other forms of abuse as they are neglected by family members,
abused physically and emotionally within society.’
The findings come as the Swazi Government which is not
elected by the people but handpicked by King Mswati III who rules as
sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch said it could not afford to pay
elderly grants to people who reached the age of 60 this year. About 4,000
people are affected.
A
media report in Swaziland estimated that the government
needed about an extra E20 million (US$1.4 million) to pay for the new
pensioners and another E40 million to meet a shortfall to pay the existing
66,000 people already receiving the pensions.
The Government said it had no budget to pay the new
pensions. It has a budget of E282 million for the elderly, but with the reviewed
monthly grant, rising from E220 to E400 has meant that this budget became
insufficient, the Observer
on Saturday reported in November 2017.
Although the government did not provide sufficiently
for the elderly in its 2017 budget it did increase spending on the Swaziland
Royal Household by E200 million (US$14 million) to E1.3 billion. The increase
was ten times the amount needed to pay for the new elderly grants.
King Mswati lives a lavish lifestyle, with at least 13
palaces, fleets of top-of-the-range Mercedes Benz and BMW cars and at least one
Rolls Royce. He has a private jet airplane and is soon
to get a second.
See
also
SWAZI
KING’S BUDGET INCREASES US$14 MILLION
BUDGET
NEGLECTS ELDERLY, FAVOURS PM
ELDERLY
STAY POOR AS KING GETS MORE
ELDERLY
UNPAID AS CASH GOES TO SOCCER
https://swazimedia.blogspot.co.uk/2015/07/elderly-unpaid-as-cash-goes-to-soccer.html
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