Swaziland continues to be riddled with corruption, new global report shows

Swaziland / eSwatini continues to be riddled with corruption, according to the latest annual report from Transparency International.

The kingdom ruled by King Mswati III as sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch scored 38 out of a possible 100 in the Corruption Perceptions Index for 2018. In 2017 it scored 37 on a scale where zero is ‘highly corrupt’ and 100 is ‘very clean’.  The index ranks countries by their perceived levels of public sector corruption according to experts and businesspeople.

Transparency International did not publish details of the corruption in Swaziland, but it is already widely known. In November 2018 national police Deputy Commissioner Mumcy Dlamini told an event for International Fraud Awareness Week Swaziland lost E30 million from the economy because of banking fraud alone during the previous year.

In an annual report ending March 2017, Acting Auditor General Muziwandile Dlamini said  government financial accounts were incomplete, billions of emalangeni were unaccounted for and laid-down rules, guidelines and procedures were ignored. The offices of the Prime Minister, National Commissioner of Police, Defence Department and Correctional Services were among a string of government departments and agencies that broke the law by spending tens of millions of emalangeni on vehicles and transport running costs without authority.

In December 2017, Swaziland’s Anti-Corruption Commission issued a report suggesting that 79 percent of 3,090 people interviewed in a survey believed that corruption within government was ‘rife’.

The survey suggested that corruption was perceived to take place mostly in rural councils. The perceived major causes of corruption were poverty (58 percent), unemployment (54 percent) and greed (41 percent). The survey was conducted by the Swazi Ministry of Justice and Constitutional Affairs through the ACC.

In June 2017, the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA) reported the kingdom, was riddled with corruption in both private and public places.

It said, ‘The results of grand corruption are there for all to see in the ever increasing wealth of high-level civil servants and officers of state.’ 

It added, ‘For a long time the police, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Trade as well as the Department of Customs and Excise have often been implicated in corrupt practices.’

It gave many examples including the case of the government propaganda organisation Swaziland Broadcasting and Information Service (SBIS) where E 1.6 million was paid to service providers for the maintenance of a machine that was neither broken nor in use.  The officer who authorised the bogus job cards has since been promoted and transferred to another government department. 

The report called The effectiveness of anti-corruption agencies in Southern Africa stated, ‘This type of behaviour is common albeit covert and therefore difficult to monitor as goods and services are undersupplied or rerouted for personal use. The results of grand corruption are there for all to see in the ever increasing wealth of high-level civil servants and officers of state.’

See also

Corruption rife among security firms servicing Swaziland Government and public enterprises

https://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2018/08/corruption-rife-among-security-firms.html

 

Swaziland ‘riddled with corruption’

https://swazimedia.blogspot.co.uk/2017/06/swaziland-riddled-with-corruption.html

‘Army among most corrupt in world’

https://swazimedia.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/army-among-most-corrupt-in-world_31.html

POLICE STOP PROTESTORS AT BORDER

 PUDEMO President Mario Masuku stopped by police at the Swaziland border. 

Picture: PUDEMO Facebook page)

Leaders of Swaziland’s political opposition were stopped from crossing the border into South Africa to join a protest against the holding of political prisoners.

The People’s United Democratic Movement (PUDEMO) said police told them that an order to bar them from crossing the border had been issued but did not say by who and how it was drafted.

The Observer on Saturday newspaper in Swaziland reported those stopped had authentic travelling documents.

PUDEMO President Mario Masuku was among those stopped at the Ngwenya border crossing on Friday (11 May 2018). On the other side at Oshoek about 300 South African trade unionists and others had assembled to protest the imprisonment in Swaziland of Amos Mbedzi and other political prisoners.

PUDEMO is banned in Swaziland where King Mswati III rules as sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, and political parties cannot contest elections.

Mbedzi, a South African, was sentenced to 85 years and six months in jail (with 25 years to be served) in Swaziland in 2012 after conviction by the Swaziland High Court on five charges including sedition and murder.

He had been arrested following an attempt to blow up a bridge near the Lozitha royal residence in September 2008. Two people with him died from injuries caused when the bomb exploded prematurely.

There was heavy police presence at the border while the protests went on the other side for about two hours.

Meetings on all topics are routinely banned in Swaziland. In 2013, the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA) reported that Swaziland was becoming a police and military state. It said things had become so bad in the kingdom that police were unable to accept that peaceful political and social dissent was a vital element of a healthy democratic process, and should not be viewed as a crime.

These complaints were made by OSISA at an African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights (ACHPR) meeting in The Gambia in April 2013.

OSISA said, ‘There are also reliable reports of a general militarization of the country through the deployment of the Swazi army, police and correctional services to clamp down on any peaceful protest action by labour or civil society organisations ahead of the country’s undemocratic elections.’

OSISA was commenting on the trend in Southern Africa for police and security services to be increasingly violent and abusive of human rights. In particular, OSISA highlighted how the police continued to clamp down on dissenting voices and the legitimate public activities of opposition political parties prior to, during and after elections.

As recently as September 2017, police stopped a pro-democracy meeting taking place, saying they had not given organisers permission to meet. It happened during a Global Week of Action for democracy in the kingdom. About 100 people reportedly intended to meet at the Mater Dolorosa School in the kingdom’s capital, Mbabane. 

In 2013, after police broke up a meeting to discuss the pending election, the meeting’s joint organisers, the Swaziland United Democratic Front (SUDF) and the Swaziland Democracy Campaign (SDC) said Swaziland no longer had a national police service, but instead had ‘a private militia with no other purpose but to serve the unjust, dictatorial, unSwazi and ungodly, semi-feudal royal Tinkhundla system of misrule’.

In April 2015, a planned rally to mark the anniversary of the royal decree that turned Swaziland from a democracy to a kingdom ruled by an autocratic monarch was abandoned amid fears that police would attack participants. In February and March, large numbers of police disbanded meetings of the Trade Union Congress of Swaziland (TUCOSWA), injuring at least one union leader.

In 2014, police illegally abducted prodemocracy leaders and drove them up to 30 kilometres away, and dumped them to prevent them taking part in a meeting calling for freedom in the kingdom. Police staged roadblocks on all major roads leading to Swaziland’s main commercial city, Manzini, where protests were to be held. They also physically blocked halls to prevent meetings taking place.  Earlier in the day police had announced on state radio that meetings would not be allowed to take place.

In 2012, four days of public protest were planned by trade unions and other prodemocracy organisations. They were brutally suppressed by police and state forces and had to be abandoned.

In 2011, a group using Facebook, called for an uprising to depose the King. State forces took this call seriously and many prodemocracy leaders were arrested. Police and security forces prevented people from travelling into towns and cities to take part in demonstrations. Again, the protests were abandoned.

See also

RELEASE AMOS MBEDZI CAMPAIGN

https://swazimedia.blogspot.co.uk/2018/05/release-amos-mbedzi-campaign.html

 

SWAZI POLICE NOW ‘A PRIVATE MILITIA’

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2013/04/swazi-police-now-private-militia.html

SWAZILAND ‘BECOMING MILITARY STATE’

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2013/04/swaziland-becoming-military-state.html

POLICE THREAT TO DEMOCRATIC STATE

https://swazimedia.blogspot.co.uk/2013/04/police-threat-to-democracy-debate.html

ARMY CONFIRMS SHOOT-TO-KILL POLICY

The Army in Swaziland will shoot-to-kill suspected rustlers, it has confirmed.

A newspaper in the kingdom ruled by King Mswati III as sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch said the army had ‘declared war’.

There has been much evidence in past years that the Army – officially known as the Umbutfo Swaziland Defence Force (USDF) – the police and game rangers have shoot-to-kill policies against civilians.

The Swazi Observer reported that in the latest move Captain Thembumusa Nsibandze of USDF told a meeting that included representatives of the Swazi Army, the kingdom’s police force and their Mozambican counterparts at Lomahasha on Tuesday (27 March 2018) a spate of cattle rustling incidents had gone too far and ‘they will now be unapologetic as they wipe out the syndicate’. 

The newspaper added, ‘Nsibandze clarified that they were not declaring war with any nation, but were declaring war with criminals, regardless of their nationality.’

It went on, ‘He said as an armed force, they can only use their guns to bring these criminal activities to an end. “If the crime syndicate show no intention of stopping their unlawful activity, we will be forced to shoot-to-kill.”’

Alleged rustlers and poachers in Swaziland have been the target of shoot-to-kill policies for years. In April 2017, Survival International wrote to the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Extrajudicial, Summary or Arbitrary Executions, saying Swaziland ‘appears’ to have a shoot-on-sight policy that allows game rangers to kill suspected poachers.

In its letter it said, ‘We say “appears” because usually the policy is not defined by any law, or even written down.  As a consequence, nobody knows when wildlife officers are permitted to use lethal force against them, and it is impossible for dependents to hold to account officers whom they believe to have killed without good reason.’

Stephen Corry, Survival International Director, said the shoot-on-sight policy directly affected people who lived close to game parks and guards often failed to distinguish people hunting for food from commercial poachers.   

It is not only alleged poachers and rustlers who are targeted. In November 2015 soldiers at border between Swaziland and South Africa, near Mankayane ambushed a truck and riddled it with bullets, killing the occupant, because it would not stop when requested. The dead man ‘had his skull and chest split open’, according to a report in the Times of Swaziland at the time.

 

In October 2015, soldiers put 16 bullets into a man at Gege and killed him because he would not stop his car at a road check. The Swazi Observer, a newspaper in effect owned by the King, reported at the time that the soldiers, ‘found themselves with no option but to open fire when a Toyota Tazz bearing foreign registration numbers was smuggled into the kingdom with the occupants failing to stop when ordered to do so’.

It added, ‘A total of 16 bullet wounds were found on the deceased’s body. This incident came less than two weeks or so after soldiers also gunned down another suspected car smuggler near Mshololo not far from Zombodze Emuva. 

In July 2015, it was reported by Titus Thwala a member of the Swazi parliament that Swaziland soldiers beat up old ladies so badly they had to be taken to their homes in wheelbarrows. They were among the local residents who were regularly beaten by soldiers at informal crossing points between Swaziland and South Africa.

Soldiers have been out of control in the kingdom for a very long time. In January 2010 they were warned by the Swaziland Human Rights and Public Administration Commission that their attacks on civilians amounted to a ‘shoot-to-kill’ policy and this was unconstitutional.

In April 2013, the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA) condemned Swaziland police and state security forces for their ‘increasingly violent and abusive behaviour’ that is leading to the ‘militarization’ of the kingdom.

In a report to the African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights (ACHPR) meeting in The Gambia, OSISA said, ‘There are also reliable reports of a general militarization of the country through the deployment of the Swazi army, police and correctional services to clamp down on any peaceful protest action by labour or civil society organisations ahead of the country’s undemocratic elections.’

See also

SWAZILAND ‘BECOMING MILITARY STATE’

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2013/04/swaziland-becoming-military-state.html

ARMY SHOOT 16 BULLETS INTO ‘SMUGGLER’

https://swazimedia.blogspot.co.uk/2015/10/army-shoot-16-bullets-into-smuggler.html

 

SWAZI SOLDIERS AMBUSH AND KILL MAN

https://swazimedia.blogspot.co.uk/2015/11/swazi-soldiers-ambush-and-kill-man.html

POLICE BLOCK BUDGET PROTEST MARCH

Police armed with batons blocked a road in Swaziland to stop a petition rejecting the national budget being delivered to parliament.

Police with guns watched from a distance.

It happened in Lobamba on Thursday (15 March 2018). About 100 members of civil society groups, community organisations and political parties under the banner of the Swaziland Economic Justice Network marched from Somhlolo National Stadium heading to the Parliament gate.

The Times of Swaziland, the only independent newspaper in the kingdom where King Mswati III rules as sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, reported the march was halted because it ‘would disturb Labadzala’. Labadzala is a group of Royal elders.

The newspaper reported, ‘the participants resolved to march and force the police out of their way to deliver the petition.

‘However, immediately when they got into the road towards the traffic circle, the police, who were mostly armed with batons, formed a line across the road while those carrying guns watched from a distance. 

‘The participants tried to divert from the main road and marched across the traffic circle but more police officers joined their colleagues to extend the barrier. Thereafter, the participants sang provocative political songs while dancing and toyi- toying in front of police officers.’

A representative of the Clerk to Parliament came out and received the petition.

The national budget has been controversial for a number of reasons, mainly because it raises Value Added Tax by 1 percent to 15 percent. A plan to impose 15 percent VAT on electricity prices for the first time has been shelved pending a review. 

Freedom of speech and assembly are severely curtailed in Swaziland. Political parties are banned from taking part in elections and King Mswati chooses the Prime Minister and cabinet ministers. Advocates for multiparty democracy have been arrested under the Suppression of Terrorism Act.

 

Meetings on all topics are routinely banned in Swaziland and the kingdom’s police and security forces have been criticised by international observers. In 2013, the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA) reported that Swaziland was becoming a police and military state. It said things had become so bad that police were unable to accept that peaceful political and social dissent was a vital element of a healthy democratic process, and should not be viewed as a crime.

These complaints were made by OSISA at an African Commission on Human and Peoples' Rights (ACHPR) meeting in The Gambia in April 2013.

OSISA said, ‘There are also reliable reports of a general militarization of the country through the deployment of the Swazi army, police and correctional services to clamp down on any peaceful protest action by labour or civil society organisations ahead of the country’s undemocratic elections [in 2013].’

As recently as September 2017, police stopped a pro-democracy meeting taking place, saying they had not given organisers permission to meet. It happened during a Global Week of Action for democracy in the kingdom. About 100 people reportedly intended to meet at the Mater Dolorosa School (MDS) in the kingdom’s capital, Mbabane. 

In 2013, after police broke up a meeting to discuss the pending election, the meeting’s joint organisers, the Swaziland United Democratic Front (SUDF) and the Swaziland Democracy Campaign (SDC) said Swaziland no longer had a national police service, but instead had ‘a private militia with no other purpose but to serve the unjust, dictatorial, unSwazi and ungodly, semi-feudal royal Tinkhundla system of misrule’.

In April 2015, a planned rally to mark the anniversary of the royal decree that turned Swaziland from a democracy to a kingdom ruled by an autocratic monarch was abandoned amid fears that police would attack participants. In February and March, large numbers of police disbanded meetings of the Trade Union Congress of Swaziland (TUCOSWA), injuring at least one union leader.

In 2014, police illegally abducted prodemocracy leaders and drove them up to 30 kilometres away, and dumped them to prevent them taking part in a meeting calling for freedom in the kingdom. Police staged roadblocks on all major roads leading to Swaziland’s main commercial city Manzini where protests were to be held. They also physically blocked halls to prevent meetings taking place.  Earlier in the day police had announced on state radio that meetings would not be allowed to take place.

In 2012, four days of public protest were planned by trade unions and other prodemocracy organisations. They were brutally suppressed by police and state forces and had to be abandoned.

See also

SWAZI BUDGET A TALE OF WOES

https://swazimedia.blogspot.co.uk/2018/03/swazi-budget-tale-of-woes.html

 

MPS SEND BUDGET BACK FOR REVIEW

https://swazimedia.blogspot.co.uk/2018/03/mps-send-budget-back-for-review.html

HOSTILE REACTION TO VAT INCREASE

https://swazimedia.blogspot.co.uk/2018/03/hostile-reaction-to-vat-increase.html

SWAZI POLICE NOW ‘A PRIVATE MILITIA’

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2013/04/swazi-police-now-private-militia.html

POLICE ‘SMUGGLING AT BORDER POST’

Police officers in Swaziland have been accused of illegally smuggling mealie-meal into the kingdom from South Africa.

A police car was spotted taking at least 15 bags of 12.5 kg meal across the border at Ngwenya-Oshoek, the Sunday Observer newspaper in Swaziland reported (11 February 2018). There is a 20kg quota for individuals to import the meal which is also known as corn meal or maize meal. 

The newspaper said one of its own reporters witnessed a police car being loaded with mealie-meal and an officer driving through the border post, ‘without formality, save for the driver greeting officers manning the South African entry point’. It happened on Wednesday  7 February 2018 at about 11.20 a.m.

The car was later seen delivering mealie-meal to Mbabane Central High school.

The newspaper reported, ‘A police officer admitted that some superiors or those with authority to drive vehicles used them to buy mealie-meal on a regular basis, which they suspect is resold locally.’ 

The Observer quoted an unnamed police officer saying, ‘They buy in bulk, which I suspect is not for personal consumption because they buy several bags at a time in any case.’

Police are investigating.

There have been a number of allegations of police corruption in Swaziland. In June 2017, National Commissioner of Police Isaac Magagula announced an investigation into reports officers helped to smuggle illegal foreigners into the kingdom.

In December 2017, Mbabane Magistrates Court was told of an officer selling fake driving licences.

 

In June 2017, people in Mahlangatsha accuse armed police of forcefully taking away the marijuana (known locally as dagga) that they had illegally farmed and selling it.

In June 2017, the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA) reported the kingdom, which is ruled by King Mswati III as sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, was riddled with corruption in both private and public places.

It said, ‘The results of grand corruption are there for all to see in the ever increasing wealth of high-level civil servants and officers of state.’ 

It added, ‘For a long time the police, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Trade as well as the Department of Customs and Excise have often been implicated in corrupt practices.’

See also

POLICEMAN ‘SOLD FAKE DRIVER LICENCES’

https://swazimedia.blogspot.co.uk/2018/01/policeman-sold-fake-driver-licences.html

 

SWAZI POLICE CORRUPTION PROBE

https://swazimedia.blogspot.co.uk/2017/06/swazi-police-corruption-probe.html

‘POLICE STEAL ILLEGAL DRUGS TO SELL’

https://swazimedia.blogspot.co.uk/2017/06/police-steal-illegal-drugs-to-sell.html

 

SWAZILAND ‘RIDDLED WITH CORRUPTION’

https://swazimedia.blogspot.co.uk/2017/06/swaziland-riddled-with-corruption.html

POLICEMAN ‘SOLD FAKE DRIVER LICENCES’

A police officer in Swaziland sold fake driving licences, a court in the kingdom was told.

A traffic cop in Manzini, Swaziland’s main commercial city, took E2,500 (US$200) for a fake document.

Hloniphile Gule appeared before Mbabane Principal Magistrate Fikile Nhlabatsi after having been charged with driving a car without a valid licence. 

The Swazi Observer reported  (29 December 2017) that Gule told the court that she obtained the document from a traffic police officer in Manzini in 2003 after paying him E2,500 in cash. She said she did not know the licence was a fake.

The newspaper reported her saying, ‘I started driving lessons in  2003 and after a few months, my driving instructor said I was now ready to get a drivers licence. He took me and four others to the Manzini Police Station where we met a traffic police officer. The officer instructed all four of us to give him E2,500 each and wait outside the police station.’

She said the officer who was dressed in full police uniform gave licences to all five of them.

Gule pleaded guilty to the offence and asked for leniency. She was  sentenced to one year imprisonment with a fine option of E2,000. The sentence was suspended for one year on condition she was not found guilty of a similar offence. 

People in Swaziland believe corruption in the kingdom is rife, a survey published in December 2017 found. About 79 percent of 3,090 people interviewed said this in a survey conducted by the Swazi Ministry of Justice and Constitution Affairs through the Anti-Corruption Commission.

The survey suggested that the perceived major causes of corruption were poverty (58 percent), unemployment (54 percent) and greed (41 percent). 

In June 2017, the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA) reported the kingdom, which is ruled by King Mswati III as sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, was riddled with corruption in both private and public places.

It said, ‘The results of grand corruption are there for all to see in the ever increasing wealth of high-level civil servants and officers of state.’ 

It added, ‘For a long time the police, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Trade as well as the Department of Customs and Excise have often been implicated in corrupt practices.’

It gave many examples including the case of the government propaganda organisation Swaziland Broadcasting and Information Service (SBIS) where E 1.6 million was paid to service providers for the maintenance of a machine that was neither broken nor in use.  The officer who authorised the bogus job cards has since been promoted and transferred to another government department. 

The report called The effectiveness of anti-corruption agencies in Southern Africa stated, ‘This type of behaviour is common albeit covert and therefore difficult to monitor as goods and services are undersupplied or rerouted for personal use. The results of grand corruption are there for all to see in the ever increasing wealth of high-level civil servants and officers of state.’

See also

SWAZILAND ‘RIDDLED WITH CORRUPTION’

https://swazimedia.blogspot.co.uk/2017/06/swaziland-riddled-with-corruption.html

CORRUPTION IN SWAZI GOVERNMENT ‘RIFE’

https://swazimedia.blogspot.co.uk/2017/12/corruption-in-swazi-government-rife.html

CORRUPTION IN SWAZI GOVERNMENT ‘RIFE’

Public perception in Swaziland is that corruption within Government is ‘rife’, according to a new survey just published.

About 79 percent of 3,090 people interviewed said this in a survey conducted by the Swazi Ministry of Justice and Constitution Affairs through the Anti-Corruption Commission.

The Observer on Saturday newspaper (9 December 2017) published some of the survey’s results. It said, ‘Within the private sector and chiefdoms the respondents agreed that there were elements of corruption there, 36 percent and 29 percent concurred respectively.’

It added, ‘The survey states that the rural councils, bobandlancane (imiphakatsi) is where the corruption is perceived to be. 

‘The report states that perceived major causes of corruption are poverty (58 percent), unemployment (54 percent) and greed (41 percent). 

‘It is agreed that corruption comes in these following forms; giving and receiving bribes is high at 73 percent, abuse of power at 66 percent, misuse of public funds at 44 percent and misuse of public assets and facilities is at 40 percent. 

The survey said that corruption was also evident in education, transportation, civic groups, town councils, manufacturing, construction and the media. 

Corruption in Swaziland is not new. In June 2017, the Open Society Initiative for Southern Africa (OSISA) reported the kingdom, which is ruled by King Mswati III as sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, was riddled with corruption in both private and public places.

It said, ‘The results of grand corruption are there for all to see in the ever increasing wealth of high-level civil servants and officers of state.’ 

It added, ‘For a long time the police, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Commerce, Industry and Trade as well as the Department of Customs and Excise have often been implicated in corrupt practices.’

It gave many examples including the case of the government propaganda organisation Swaziland Broadcasting and Information Service (SBIS) where E 1.6 million (US$120,000) was paid to service providers for the maintenance of a machine that was neither broken nor in use.  The officer who authorised the bogus job cards has since been promoted and transferred to another government department. 

The report called The effectiveness of anti-corruption agencies in Southern Africa stated, ‘This type of behaviour is common albeit covert and therefore difficult to monitor as goods and services are undersupplied or rerouted for personal use. The results of grand corruption are there for all to see in the ever increasing wealth of high-level civil servants and officers of state.’

It added, ‘It has been suggested that Swaziland has no less than 31 millionaires who are junior government officials. In 2005, the then minister of finance Majozi Sithole estimated that corruption was costing the Swazi economy approximately E40 million a month.’

See also

SWAZILAND ‘RIDDLED WITH CORRUPTION’

https://swazimedia.blogspot.co.uk/2017/06/swaziland-riddled-with-corruption.html

ARMY PROBES SELF OVER CORRUPTION

https://swazimedia.blogspot.co.uk/2017/06/army-probes-self-over-corruption.html

‘ARMY AMONG MOST CORRUPT IN WORLD’

https://swazimedia.blogspot.co.uk/2017/05/army-among-most-corrupt-in-world_31.html