Oxfam, the international
anti-poverty charity, has named Swaziland / eSwatini as the country with most
income inequality in Africa.
In a report called A Tale of Two Continents:
Fighting Inequality in Africa it measured people with top
incomes and compared them with those with the least.
Oxfam reported, ‘The
most unequal country in the region, Swaziland, is home to one billionaire,
Nathan Kirsh, who is estimated to have US$4.9bn. If he worked in one of the restaurants that
his wholesale company supplies on a worker’s minimum wage, it would take him
5.7 million years to earn his current level of wealth.’ The annual minimum wage
in Swaziland is US$848 (or about E12,000 in the local Swazi currency), Oxfam reported.
The new report is one of many about poverty in
Swaziland in recent years. In August 2018 a
report published by the World Bank stated, ‘Poverty, inequality and unemployment
are the primary development challenges which have remained stubborn and
difficult to address.’
It said, ‘Based on the international poverty lines of
US$1.9 and US$3.2 a day, it is estimated that 38 percent of the Swazi
population [estimated at 1.2 million] lives in extreme poverty and a total of
60.3 percent is poor overall. These estimates represent a relatively small
improvement from the 2009 finding that 42.0 percent were subsisting
below the US$1.9 a day line and 64.4 percent were below the US$3.2 a day
line.
‘In general, children, the elderly, the unemployed as
well as female-headed and single-headed households are disproportionately
represented among the poor.’
In December 2018 a report published by Afrobarometer
suggested poverty in Swaziland got worse over the previous three years.
More than half the people interviewed reported going
without enough food and without the medical care they needed.
The numbers going without food was 56 percent (up from
51 percent from a similar survey taken in 2015). Those going without medical
care was 53 percent (up from 33 percent).
In 2017, Oxfam itself
published a report called Starting With People, a human economy
approach to inclusive growth in Africa which also detailed the differences
in countries between the top most earners and those at the bottom. It stated
the Swazi government, which is handpicked by King Mswati, who rules as an
absolute monarch, ‘failed to put measures in place to tackle inequality, with
poor scores for social spending and progressive taxation, and a poor record on
labour rights’.
King Mswati III has a reputation
for lavish spending. He has at least 13 palaces, two private jets and fleets of
top-of-the-range cars. At his 50th birthday in 2018 he
wore a watch
worth US$1.6 million and a suit
beaded with diamonds that weighed 6 kg.
In 2017 the international
website Business Insider reported
he had a net worth of US$200 million (about E2.8 billion).
See also
No
let up on poverty in Swaziland as absolute King makes public display of his
vast wealth
Lavish
spending leads to food aid cut
No comments:
Post a Comment