KING AWARDS SELF ARMY FOOD TENDER

Swaziland Solidarity Network

Statement

SOURCE

31 October 2011

Mswati set to become Swaziland’s richest tenderpreneur

In the midst of Swaziland’s financial crisis, and the ever increasing gap between rich and poor, King Mswati has decided to award himself a huge tender to supply food to the army. This was reported in a confused Times of Swaziland article early today (31 October 2011).

The government of Swaziland has decided to make Tibiyo Taka Ngwane, the national investment trust company that the king uses as his personal piggy bank, the sole supplier of food to the country’s army.

The Principal Secretary in the Defence and Security Ministry, Andreas Mathabela, claimed that the move was driven by reasons such as the ever escalating food prices and his personal delusion that Tibiyo is a company of nutritionists.

What the government has effectively done is to move food procurement from an open tendering process, albeit flawed, which had business opportunities for independent tax-paying suppliers, and give it to a non-tax paying entity that is completely controlled by the king.

While there were legal possibilities of rooting out corruption in the previous open tendering process, the new scheme has none and will only further enrich the royal family. We condemn this greed and have to point out that this is one of the many man-made decisions that lead to the economic difficulties currently engulfing the country.

Issued by the Swaziland Solidarity Network [SSN]

TOP SWAZILAND DEFENCE MAN FIRED

John Kunene, the top civil servant at the Swaziland Ministry of Defence, has been fired because of the food crisis that has hit the Swazi Army.

Barnabas Dlamini, the illegally-appointed Prime Minister of Swaziland, called a press conference at 10.20pm last night (18 March 2011) to announce a reshuffle of principle secretaries. The PSs were made to play a game of musical chairs and when the music stopped Kunene was the only one left standing without a chair. He will be replaced by Andreas Mathabela, from the Tikhundla Administration and Development.

The Canadian Press news agency reports today that Kunene was sacked because of the food crisis that has hit the Umbutfu Swaziland Defence Force (aka the army).

Food is in such short supply that soldiers are reportedly going from homestead to homestead in Swaziland begging for food. Shortages have occurred because the army has changed the way it procures food and supplies.

It is not clear whether at the heart of the problem is the government’s inability to pay its bills because of the present economic meltdown or the corruption that riddles the army.

Earlier in the day King Mswati III, sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, said the army’s ‘top brass’ would be ‘taken to task’ for the shortage. The king made the comment at an army passing-out ceremony.

According to a report in the Swazi News, an independent newspaper in the kingdom, he was ‘livid’ that he had not been told about the shortage. He had heard about it from the media, he said.

‘This shall be corrected immediately,’ he reportedly said to loud cheers from the soldiers.

And, by the end of the day Kunene was out on his ear.

It is not clear whether the king’s main concern was that he hadn’t been told, or that his soldiers were having to beg for food from ordinary Swazi people – six in ten live in abject poverty and three in ten are officially classed as under nourished.

The sacking also came on the day that thousands of people marched on the office of the prime minister to demand that the government resign.

Yesterday’s protest was the first of a number planned over the coming weeks and months. An ‘uprising’ coordinated through a Facebook site is planned for 12 April.

The king and the government he handpicked have been showing signs in recent weeks that they are worried that Swazi people have been encouraged by the uprisings in the Middle East and North Africa and are prepared to fight for their own democratic rights.

Obviously, if an uprising starts in Swaziland, King Mswati will want the army on his side. If he has allowed them to go hungry, they will think twice about whether he is worth supporting.