Swazi Media Commentary: Swazi Mobile

Showing posts with label Swazi Mobile. Show all posts

Tuesday, 10 April 2018

SWAZI KING THE PRIZE IN SMS CONTEST

A chance to meet Swaziland’s absolute monarch King Mswati III is being offered as a prize to encourage his subjects to send him ‘warm’ 50^th birthday greetings by SMS.

People will have to pay E5 each time they send a message. It was not reported where the money would be spent.

The prize is part of a drive organised by the Swazi Observer, a newspaper in effect owned by the King, and Swazi Mobile.

The Observer on Saturday reported (7 April 2018) that people could SMS the King ‘warm greetings’ ahead of his 50^th birthday on 19 April 2018.

Mbongeni Mbingo, Swazi Observer Managing Editor, said the newspaper would ensure that people who send the most messages accompany them to deliver the messages to the King. ‘If you send the most messages you stand a chance to meet the King. Who would not want to meet the King or at least come close to him? This is a chance of a lifetime,’ the Observer reported him saying.

King Mswati rules Swaziland as sub-Sharan Africa’s last absolute monarch. He lives a lavish lifestyle with at least 13 palaces and fleets of top-of-the-range BMW and Mercedes cars. He is to take delivery of his second private jet airplane before his birthday. Meanwhile, seven in ten of his estimated 1.1 million subjects live in abject poverty with incomes less than E24 (US$2) per day.

Mbingo warned readers not to ‘abuse’ the chance to send the King messages. The Observer reported, ‘Mbingo noted that Swazis are known for their respect hence it is not anticipated that they engage in unscrupulous and uncalled for behaviour throughout the period of the SMS line. He reminded people that the messages will be published in the Swazi Observer hence they do not expect any unpleasant messages although they would go out of their way to ensure that those messages meant for the cause are published.’

Monday, 15 January 2018

KING’S ‘BUSINESS PARTNER’ ASSASSINATED

A controversial businessman with links to Swaziland’s autocratic King Mswati III was assassinated at a petrol station in the kingdom.

Victor Gamedze was shot twice in the head at the Galp filling station in Ezulwini on Sunday (14 January 2018).

Gamedze was the chairman of Swazi Mobile, a new telecoms company in Swaziland. It was surrounded by allegations of corruption and money laundering. King Mswati, who is sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, was accused of being in collusion with Gamedze and the Zambian President Edgar Lungu in a deal to establish a mobile phone company in Zambia using Swazi Mobile as a cover.

Swaziland is a secretive state where media are censored and it is difficult to uncover the true nature of Swazi Mobile. It is known that the company was awarded a licence to provide mobile phone services that started in July 2017. It beat other companies for the contract although it had no experience in the mobile phone business. Unusually in Swaziland, the company was swiftly launched only five months after the licence was given.

Within three months of the launch Gamedze told media in Swaziland the company had a stock value of E1.2 billion (US$98 million).

In June 2017 a report appeared in the newspaper Swaziland Shopping stating that King Mswati and Gamedze had forced Swaziland’s government to side-line rival parastatal Swaziland Post and Telecommunications Corporation (SPTC) from competing with Swazi Mobile. It said King Mswati and Gamedze had shares in Swazi Mobile.

The African News Agency reported the editor of Swaziland Shopping Zweli Martin Dlamini received a death threat. It reported Dlamini saying, ‘Shortly after publishing the story, I received a threatening call from Gamedze that lasted for 20 minutes where he vowed to “deal with me”. Later Communications Minister Dumsani Ndlangamandla summoned me to a meeting and told me that the King was not happy with the story and had ordered that the newspaper should be closed.’

Swaziland Shopping was closed by the Swazi authorities who claimed that it had not been properly registered even though the newspaper had been published since 2014 with no problem.

Dlamini fled to South Africa fearing for his life.

Meanwhile, media in Zambia have been reporting on meetings between King Mswati and President Lungu to set up a fourth mobile phone company in Zambia to be owned by the pair using proxies.

Gamedze was murdered in full view at a petrol station on Sunday at about 7pm. A witness told the Swazi Observer, ‘He started walking towards his car and then a man, wearing a white cap, followed him towards the car. When Gamedze was about to open his car door, the man withdrew his gun and placed it on the side of Gamedze’s head and shot twice. The man didn’t say a word. He just shot him. Gamedze went down while the man started walking towards a red VW Golf car which had been parked by the waiting room on the left side of the road heading to Mbabane.’

The Times of Swaziland reported two men were involved. ‘One of the gunmen, at close range, aimed the gun to Gamedze’s head and pulled the trigger. As soon as Gamedze hit the ground, the same gunman again aimed the gun at another side of his head and fired the second shot,’ it said.

The Observer said, ‘At the scene of the incident, senior Police officer Mxolisi Dlamini told journalists that the shooting looked like one that was planned well in advance.’

Police later said suspects linked to the shooting had been arrested while trying to cross into South Africa through the Lundzi Border post.

Sunday, 7 January 2018

‘EDITOR FLEES AFTER DEATH THREAT’

Swazi King’s henchmen threaten to kill editor

Kenworthy News Media, 6 January 2018

SOURCE

Swazi editor Zweli Martin Dlamini has fled to neighbouring South Africa after he received death threats. He had written a story about absolute monarch King Mswati III’s shady dealings in the telecommunications industry, writes Kenworthy News Media.

Last June, editor of independent business newspaper Swaziland Shopping Zweli Martin Dlamini wrote and published a story about new telecommunications company Swazi Mobile, owned by King Mswati III and run by local businessman Victor Gamedze.

The punchline of the story was that the pair had forced Swaziland’s government to side-line rival government parastatal company SPTC from competing with Swazi Mobile – a new company that they and other high ranking officials, including the Prime Minister, owns shares in.

In 2012, SPTC had been ordered to switch of its fixed phones (landlines) and data components to make way for South African phone company MTC, which Mswati and the Prime Minister also had shares in.

Death threats
“Shortly after publishing the story, I received a threatening call from Gamedze that lasted for twenty minutes where he vowed to ‘deal with me’. Later Communications Minister Dumsani Ndlangamandla summoned me to a meeting and told me that the King was not happy with the story and had ordered that the newspaper should be closed,” Dlamini says.

After Swaziland Shopping was closed, Dlamini says he learnt that the police had a warrant for his arrest and that he would be poisoned in prison. A close ally of Victor Gamedze also told Dlamini that the businessman wanted him dead because he had revealed secrets about Swazi Mobile.

Dlamini says he subsequently fled to South Africa because he feared for his life.

And Swaziland’s police forces certainly do have a record of torturing – and occasionally murdering – those who challenge the King’s rule, as documented by Amnesty International and other human rights organisations.

No media freedom
The Swazi government have claimed that Swaziland Shopping was closed because it was not properly registered under the colonial-era Books and Newspapers Act of 1963, even though the newspaper has been published since 2014. The police also refuted that Dlamini was on the police “wanted list.”

Swaziland is however renowned for its government fabricating stories and its lack of media freedom, especially in regard to stories about King Mswati and his family and friends.

Swaziland is ranked 152th in Reporters Without Borders’ 2017 World Press Freedom Index. There is “no media freedom,” the NGO says. According to a 2014 report by African Media Barometer, journalists in Swaziland “face routine intimidation by the state.”

In 2007, King Mswati ordered the Times Sunday to print an apology and sack those responsible for a critical story about him, or he would close down the paper. In 2009, the editor of the Swazi Observer, owned by the king, nearly lost his job for writing about the King’s luxury cars. And in 2014 the Times on Sunday editor was summoned by the King and told that stories relating to his property did not belong in the newspaper.

Victor Gamedze has also been known to threaten journalists who publish critical stories about his business dealings. In 2016, he allegedly assaulted a journalist from the Swazi Observer and ordered another fired because they wrote unfavourable stories about him and his football team.

International community must act
“In Swaziland, the media is being held hostage and been turned into spies for the state,” Zweli Martin Dlamini says. “For the calls for democracy to intensify, the media must be liberated so that the international community can know what is happening in Swaziland.”

Secretary General of the Media Workers Union of Swaziland, Sicelo Vilane, insists that the charges against Dlamini are fabricated and should be dropped, and that the international community must act against the lack of freedom of speech in Swaziland.

“No-one is allowed to report freely and Swaziland is one of the major violators of media workers’ rights, freedom of speech and -expression. Why are they not questioning the action of Mswati’s government?,” Vilane says.

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