SWAZILAND’S BULLY PM ‘MUST GO’

Swaziland is in a state of instability after Barnabas Dlamini, the kingdom’s illegally-appointed Prime Minister, took Prince Guduza, the Speaker of the House of Assembly, to court to stop a debate about the PM’s irregular land deals taking place.

Dlamini and other cabinet ministers are at the centre of a scandal in which they were allowed to buy government land at a fraction of the true price.

Dlamini succeeded in getting a High Court order to stop parliament debating the land issue and publication of a select committee report into the affair.

Now, members of parliament are calling Dlamini a bully and demanding that he quit.

Marwick Khumalo, Lomdzala MP, called Dlamini a manipulative bully driven by greed.

The Swazi Observer today (26 May 2011) reports that Khumalo said the PM had put too much value on himself. He said Dlamini was now ‘overpricing himself thinking he is the cleverest person in the country’.

Khumalo went on to say that ‘the prime minister is pointing a finger at the King’s face’, saying as MPs they would not allow that. He stated that it was a known fact that the King ordered the return of the crown land that cabinet apportioned to themselves, but Dlamini defied that order.

‘The King is like a father to all of us. We cannot just sit there and allow someone to make fun of him.’

Mkhululi Dlamini, Hhukwini MP, said Barnabas Dlamini should be suspended from the House.

Joseph Madonsela, Mafutseni MP, said ‘they were not in a position to work with the prime minister anymore’. He said they did not trust the PM, adding that he did not only take the Speaker to court but all members of the House of Assembly.

Barnabas Dlamini yesterday (25 May 2011) left Swaziland to go to Nigeria to attend the inauguration of president Goodluck Jonathan.

SWAZI POLICE TRACK FACEBOOK USERS

Swaziland now has specially ‘trained officers’ to track down people who use Facebook to criticise the Swazi Government.

They work ‘hand in hand’ with the police to try to catch the culprits.

The Times of Swaziland reported today (11 May 2011) that Nathaniel Mahluza, Principal Secretary at the Ministry of Information Communication and Technology, admitted yesterday that the government was worried by what the newspaper called ‘unsavory comments’ about the kingdom being published on the Internet.

It is not clear what specific law the Facebook users are supposed to have broken, but in Swaziland, ruled by King Mswati III, sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, free speech is severely curtailed, even though the Swazi Constitution allows for it.

The Times reported that Mahluza was responding to Public Accounts Committee Chairperson Thuli Dladla who said the insults on the kingdom were getting worse on Facebook.

However, Hhukwini MP Mkhululi Dlamini said if the posts were made in Swaziland it was possible to catch them.

Dladla, however advised, Mahluza against revealing how they worked on these issues with the police.

Mahluza said although they had trained officers who worked hand in hand with the police to catch the culprits, it was proving very difficult to catch them.