KING’S EMPTY BOASTS ON PROSPERITY

King Mswati is at it again, offering empty boasts that he has attracted foreign business people to invest in his kingdom on a large scale, with thousands of jobs on offer for his impoverished subjects.

The king, who is becoming a serial fantasist, returned to his kingdom this week from a trip to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Taiwan claiming that he hadsecured Taiwanese investment to build a pharmaceutical plant, a food processing plant, a bottled water plant, a cosmetics plant and a granite and marble venture – which, according to a report in the Times of Swaziland newspaper, were expected to create more than 3 000 jobs.

The Times also reported that the king had secured investment of E100 million to pay for the project. That figure should have rang alarm bells with the media in Swaziland because E100 million is about  US$10 million -- and you’d need to get a lot of bang for your bucks to build the five projects the king spoke about on that money.

It seems every time the king goes on a trip to the Middle East or Taiwan he comes back with tall tales of his achievements with businesspeople. The Swazi media, who surely would tell readers that he was wearing a fine set of clothes even when he was clearly buck-naked, faithfully report what he says.

But, it takes no more than five minutes searching through the news archives to demonstrate that King Mswati simply tells lies.

Here are some of the projects the king has promised in the past that have not materialised.

In October  2009, he came back from Qatar claiming he had secured US$4.8 billion  to develop a ‘world-class’ facility that would store at least a three-month supply of fuel for Swaziland. Nothing happened. 

In the same month he said there was about US$200 million available for a facelift for the Swazi capital city Mbabane. It would have a ‘fully fledged state-of-the-art 21st Century Civic Centre befitting a country’s capital city’. It would have the tallest building in the capital which would be able to host a number of activities such as national games, business meetings, music and arts festivals. Building was due to start in 2010 and take three years. Nothing happened.

For years the king has been banging on about the Sikhuphe international airport, but it is still under construction in the Swaziland wilderness. This was supposed to open in 2010 with major airlines fighting to land their planes. It has not opened. In October 2009, the king announced ‘one of the world’s leading airlines’, the UAE-based Etihad Airways, would use the airport. No deal yet.

And, then there was ‘Swazi City’ with its 250 shops with four floors of luxurious shopping experience; Royal Villas which would offer up to six-star accommodation facilities suitable for all type of guests; a 28-floor hotel with 350 guest suites, world-class restaurants, three swimming areas and in-door sporting facilities, a health spa and a casino.

The king announced this plan in April 2009. He said the multi-million emalangeni cost (nobody seemed able to give a definite price) would be met by international finance. He said it would be completed in three years and bring 15,000 new jobs. It wasn’t and it didn’t.

In February 2010, King Mswati received a standing ovation at the opening of parliament when he announced that his government would spend about US$150 million over the next three years on houses for the nation.  It didn’t happen.

The king’s fantasies date back at least 15 years when he was supposed to have teamed up with another fantasist, the pop singer Michael Jackson, to bring a ‘Netherland-style’ theme park to Swaziland. Media reports in 1998 said King Mswati personally met with Jackson at Disneyland in the US to get him on board. No Netherland has been built.

It surely speaks volumes about how much people in Swaziland fear the king, who is sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, and who has a state-apparatus ready at his disposal to crush any dissent, however mild and no matter how justified, that no one will stand up and say, King Mswati has no clothes.

See also

FANTASY WATCH: ECONOMIC REALITY

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2009/11/fantasy-watch-economic-reality.html

SWAZILAND’S CAPITAL CITY FANTASY

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2009/10/swazilands-capital-city-fantasy.html

SWAZILAND’S JOBS FANTASY

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2009/04/swazilands-jobs-fantasy.html

THEY BUILT SWAZI CITY ON SAND

This conversation may have taken place in Swaziland yesterday between a foreign visitor and a Swazi local.

Excuse me, can you direct me to Swazi City please?

Swazi City?

Yes, Swazi City.

No, never heard of it.

You must have. It’s a huge place, just opened.

No, sorry.

Swazi City. It’s got 25,000 sq m of shopping.

No?

There are 250 shops. On four luxurious floors. With a variety of fashions from around the world.

Four what?

There’s a 28-floor hotel. It’s got 350 luxury suites. It’s got six stars.

Stars?

Three swimming pools. A health spa. Casino.

Have you been drinking? There’s nothing like that here.

But there must be. Look, it’s written here. This speech made by King Mswati three years ago. He promised Swazi City was going to be built. Foreign investors were going to pay for it. It would be completed in three years. He told us so. Look, it’s reported in the newspapers.

Oh, the king promised it would be so. That explains it.

See also

SWAZILAND’S JOB FANTASY

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2009/04/swazilands-jobs-fantasy.html

SWAZILAND’S CAPITAL CITY FANTASY

What on earth has happened to the critical faculties of journalists in Swaziland?

Just as news comes that Swaziland faces a cut in its national budget revenues of about 50 percent (because of dwindling customs revenues) the media are full of stories about a grand plan to spend E1.5bn (about 200 million US dollars) on a ‘facelift’ for the Swazi capital city Mbabane.

That E1.5bn will buy a civic centre and a shopping mall. Needless to say these aren’t just any old plans, they are, according to Roux Property Development, one of the South African companies behind the scheme, for a ‘fully fledged state of the art 21st Century Civic Centre befitting a country’s capital city’.

Also needless to say, King Mswati III, sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, has his fingerprints all over the deal.

According to the Times of Swaziland, the kingdom’s only independent daily newspaper, the developers first approached the king with the plan and (presumably) once he gave it the nod it was easy to get the Mbabane council and government on side.

There was no transparency in the awarding of the contract which is expected to start in June 2010 and take three years to build.

Who says Swaziland needs another shopping mall, which according to the Swazi Observer, the paper in effect owned by the king, will be the tallest building in the capital?

We are being asked to swallow the line that the new development would ‘stimulate economic growth and this would increase job opportunities in the city’. The Observer says with the new building, Mbabane would be able to host a number of activities such as national games, business meetings, music and arts festivals.

And where is the E1.5bn coming from? Remember the Swazi Government has already committed itself to spending another E1.5bn by next June to complete the Sikhuphe international airport.

And have we already forgotten ‘Swazi City’ with its 250 shops with four floors of luxurious shopping experience; Royal Villas which will offer up to 6-Star accommodation facilities suitable for all type of guests; a 28-Floor Hotel which will have 350 guest suites, world-class restaurants, three swimming areas and in-door sporting facilities, a health spa and a casino.

This plan was announced only this April by King Mswati. He said the multi-million emalangeni cost (nobody seems to have given a definite price) would be met by international finance.

At the same time the king said there would be built a new Science and Technology Park; a hi-technology industrial Site and the Matsapha Industrial Site would be expanded. By coincidence he announced this work would also take three years to complete.

Can we please get a sense of reality: there is no money in Swaziland to support these kinds of developments. Seventy per cent of the kingdom’s one million population lives in abject poverty, earning less than one US dollar a day. Receipts from the Southern African Customs Union (SACU) will collapse this year and will never again reach the levels they once did. Swaziland is heading for a major collapse in its economy.

It’s about time someone told the truth. As things stand I don’t think Swaziland’s journalists are up to that task.

SWAZILAND’S JOBS FANTASY

Does Swaziland suffer from a collective self-delusion? Or is it only King Mswati III who lives in a world of his own?

I ask following the announcement from the king that a multi-billion emalangeni Swazi City, financed by international money and comprising a 25 000 sq m shopping, entertainment and ‘wellness’ centre ‘to rival the world’; a Science and Technology Park; a hi-technology industrial Site and an expansion of Matsapha Industrial Site are to be built over the next three years, creating 15,000 new jobs.

According to the Swazi Observer, a newspaper in effect owned by King Mswati, the king told crowds during his birthday celebrations at the weekend, “I have been assured by the experts who are working on the projects that they will deliver them within the next three years.

‘I have told them that I have taken their word for it and that the nation expects that the three years will be adhered to.’

I especially like the bit about ‘I have taken their word for it’. What possible evidence is there that any international company would want to set up in Swaziland, where seven in ten people are so poor they earn less than one dollar a day and have no money to buy anything at the new shops or leisure centres. In Swaziland, people are generally under educated (think about the present row over free primary schooling) so they are unlikely to be able to work at any ‘hi tech’ plant.

The Swazi City is a delusion and we should say so now.

The sad truth is that foreign investors by and large don’t want to be in Swaziland. Only last week the Swaziland Investment Promotion Authority (SIPA), an organisation tasked with bringing investment into the kingdom, admitted in its performance report for 2006 to 2008 that it had only managed to attract five foreign investments into the country in three years, with a total of 720 jobs.

The businesses that were set up were not exactly ‘hi tech’. One was involved in producing starch from cassava and another makes plastic bags. Two are involved in manufacturing mining drills and hand held tools and the fifth is yet another Taiwanese textile company.

If that’s the best that Swaziland has been able to achieve in the past three years we shouldn’t expect a sudden flood of top flight international companies at the border any time soon.

This isn’t the first time we’ve had announcements about foreign investors bringing lots of jobs to Swaziland: who remembers all the stories about call centres clamouring to get into Swaziland bringing thousands of jobs with them? Nothing happened and nothing is going to happen.

Just about every time King Mswati goes off on a foreign trip there are reports in the media that he has secured this or that agreement and jobs are on the way. It is a sad fantasy.

This is what the king says Swazi City is going to contain: a shopping mall with more than 250 shops, ‘which offer a variety of fashions from around the world’; four floors of luxurious shopping experience; Royal Villas which will offer up to 6-Star accommodation facilities suitable for all type of guests; a 28-Floor Hotel which will have 350 guest suites, world-class restaurants, three swimming areas and in-door sporting facilities, a health spa and a casino.

Now tell me, can you believe it?

Still in the land of fantasy, the new Sikhuphe International airport will receive its first plane in 2010. This is according to Millennium Project Unit (MPU) manager Lloyd Dlamini, who told a team of ambassadors from the Gulf and Arab States who are in the kingdom to explore avenues of cooperation and development between their countries and Swaziland.

Again, according to the king’s newspaper, Dlamini wants them to help get international airlines to use Sikhuphe International Airport and also to fund some of the project.

For those who had forgotten, Sikhuphe is being built in one of Swaziland’s many wilderness areas in the Lubombo region. Building started at the behest of King Mswati and Sikhuphe was billed as an airport that would be a hub for travellers coming into the continent of Africa. The idea was they’d fly into Sikhuphe and then change planes and fly on to their intended destinations.

I have never seen any analysis that supports this objective. In 2003, the Swazi Government ignored advice from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) about participation in unviable projects, and went ahead anyway with building the airport.

Why would anyone want to fly to this new airport when hardly anyone uses Swaziland’s existing airport at Matspaha? Business is so bad at Matsapha that last year the Swazi Express airline went out of business because it couldn’t attract passengers.

But at least Matspha is close to Swaziland’s main urban centres and is relatively easy to get to; Sikhuphe by contrast doesn’t even have an access road.

And let’s not forget that major international airports at Johannesburg and Cape Town are both a short flying time away.

According to the Observer, Minister of Economic Planning and Development Prince Hlangusemphi, said ‘The team of ambassadors have airlines in their countries and these are the countries we are targeting because they have big airlines which also operate in Africa.’

That may be, but if they wanted to fly to Swaziland they could use the existing airport. The truth is they don’t want to and, well, why would they?