GO FIGURE, SWAZI FINANCE MINISTER

Swaziland Finance Minister Majozi Sithole’s is in a bit of a hole.

In his recent budget speech he managed to mislead the Swazi people on two occasions by giving statistics that were not true. The question now is: did he lie or is he just no good at his job?

The two cases involve a long standing dispute over the purchase of a private jet for King Mswati III and the unemployment figures.

The king’s jet first: seven years ago Sithole, then as now Finance Minister, and Swaziland’s present illegally-appointed Prime Minister Barnabas Dlamini, who was also PM at the time, were leaders in a secret plot to buy the king his own jet. When news leaked out there was an outcry both inside Swaziland and abroad and the purchase was dropped, but not until Swaziland taxpayers had been forced to lose E28 million (2.6 million US dollars at today’s exchange rate) on a deposit.

Since the scandal was exposed in 2002, the Swazi Government has been telling the people that it is close to getting the deposit back. In his budget statement last week (27 February 2009), Sithole said the money was now on its way. When questioned on this is said that his government had been able to secure not E28 million, but E100 million.

The Swazi Observer, the newspaper in effect owned by King Mswati III, reported Sithole then said the E100 million represented the E28 million, plus interest at the rate of 10 percent per year.

Let’s halt there. Ten percent of E28 million is E2.8 million. Multiply that annual interest by the number of years this saga has been going on (seven) and you get E19.6 million. Add the deposit and the interest together and you get E47.6 million – nowhere close to the E100 million claimed by Sithole.

The discrepancy in Sithole’s arithmetic is plain for all to see, but no member of parliament questioned the figure and (frankly) the Observer made itself look pretty stupid by simply taking the minister’s word for it.

At least the kingdom’s only independent daily newspaper, the Times of Swaziland, eventually caught up with the fact that Sithole’s sums were wrong.

But by then the story had moved on. It seems a sum of E100 million does exist, and is in deposit in South Africa, but it is not the jet deposit. The money is reported to be from donor agencies and can be used for social projects in Swaziland, but it is not money that the Swazi Government is allowed to touch. The Finance Minister insists that this money is in fact the jet money.

Now, Lobamba Lomdzala MP Marwick Khumalo has raised suspicions in the House of Assembly. He says that if it turns out that Sithole has fooled the House about the jet deposit, a motion of a vote of no confidence against him would be moved. If Sithole loses this he should be sacked.

Now on to unemployment.

According to a report in the Times, Sithole announced during the National Budget Speech that the current unemployment rate for Swaziland stood at 28.2 per cent.

He told Parliament that out of a total labour force of 559,528; only 222,771 people are employed, ‘reflecting an unemployment rate of 28.2 per cent’.

No it doesn’t. If only 222,771 people are employed from a labour force of 559,528, that means 336,757 are not employed. Now do the arithmetic: 336,757 as a percentage of 559,528 is 60.1 percent – nowhere even close to Sithole’s figure of 28.2.

If we are kind to Sithole and say he made a slip of the tongue and meant to say that only 222,771 people are UNemployed – it still gives an unemployment rate of 39.8 percent – 11 percent higher than what he told Parliament.

Where does he get the figures from? Does he just pull them from a hat and hope nobody will notice or is he just talking nonsense?

So why the discrepancies? Did he lie to Parliament (and if so why?) or is he no good at his job?

Sithole delivered his ninth annual national budget as Finance Minister last month – you be the judge.

COPS FREE SWAZI YOUTH PROTESTORS

The four members of the Swaziland Youth Congress (SWAYOCO) arrested on Saturday when police brutally smashed up their protest rally have been released without charge.

This is even though they were made to attend magistrates’ court.

It seems police realised they had no evidence against the four and one police officer at the centre of the charges was unable to identify the four as culprits.

According to a report in the Swazi Observer today (4 March 2009), an identification parade was held at the Sidwashini prison where the police officer was instructed to identify the suspects.

‘As with other identification parades, the SWAYOCO suspects were ordered to stand in one row with convicted inmates. But the police officer failed to identify them, instead he pointed to a convicted inmate as being the one who was present at the rally,’ a source close to the matter told the Observer.

SWAYOCO President Wandile Dludlu, who was arrested on terrorism charges the day before the rally to protest about the jailing of Mario Masuku, President of the People’s United Democratic Movement (PUDEMO), has also been released from police custody.

Dludlu told the Observer that he was given no reason for his release, but he has been told to report back to the Mbabane police station next Monday.

Meanwhile, prison authorities have not reacted favourably to a Swaziland High Court ruling last week that Masuku should be allowed more visitors as he waits in jail pending his trial under the Suppression of Terrorism Act.

The Times of Swaziland reported that Swaziland Federation of Trade Unions chief Jan Sithole and his counterpart from the Swaziland United Democratic Front, Barnes Dlamini were barred from visiting Masuku last Friday.

Sithole told the newspaper that he was told by prison officers that they had instructions from their superiors to ignore the court ruling.

He also said Masuku was being kept in solitary confinement.

SWAZILAND RESTRICTS PRESS FREEDOM

The Swaziland Government restricted freedoms of speech and the press during the past year and banned the publication of criticism of King Mswati III.

These are the main findings of a survey on press freedom in Swaziland, released last week.

Although the Swaziland Constitution provides for freedom of speech and of the press, the king may waive these rights at his discretion, and the government restricted these rights during 2008, especially regarding political issues or the royal family.

Most journalists practiced self-censorship even though the law empowers the government to ban publications if they are deemed ‘prejudicial or potentially prejudicial to the interests of defense, public safety, public order, public morality, or public health’.

The US State Department in its annual Country Report on Swaziland 2008 states, ‘During the year the attorney general and the prime minister warned journalists and diplomats against making statements that could be interpreted as seditious. After the arrest in November of Mario Masuku, President of the People’s United Democratic Movement (PUDEMO), several civic organizations, including the Council of Swaziland Churches and the Law Society, published notices in daily papers alerting the king to their concern about the ‘selective implementation of the country's constitution’.

The State Department notes that journalists were threatened, harassed, assaulted, and detained during the year, particularly after Attorney General Majahenkhaba Dlamini warned in November that journalists who criticized the government could be viewed as supporting terrorists and arrested under the Suppression of Terrorism Act.

Journalists received anonymous telephone calls advising them not to pursue particular stories, and many of them complied, according to the Media Institute of Southern Africa (MISA).

In June, traditional governor Jim Gama harshly criticized the print media for negative reporting on a national gathering called by the king.

In August, soldiers assaulted a Times newspaper team and seized their cameras; the journalists were at the airport to cover the return of nine of the king’s wives and their entourage from a lavish shopping spree abroad. No action was taken against the soldiers.

In September, police searched and harassed freelance journalist Lunga Masuku and Times newspaper reporter Peter Mavuso, who were covering a labour demonstration aimed at blocking the movement of goods between Swaziland and South Africa. Police also threatened to delete photos from the camera of the Times journalist. After a verbal confrontation, the officers allowed the journalists to carry on with their duties.

In December, police officers detained two freelance journalists for six hours after raiding the location where they were meeting an informant. The police repeatedly slapped the journalists and broke their equipment. No investigation of the incident had been conducted by year's end.

TWISTED LOGIC OF SWAZI DEMOCRACY

This is democracy in Swaziland.

King Mswati III, the last absolute monarch in sub-Saharan Africa, illegally appoints Barnabas Dlamini as Prime Minister. Then together they have chosen Prince Gcokoma, a chief and member of the Swazi Royal Family (and also a man who has not been elected by the people), to head up a new ministry to promote the Tinkhundla system of government in Swaziland.

Tinkhundla is the system of government that exists in Swaziland in place of representative democracy. It takes the place of political parties which are banned in Swaziland and operates on the premise that individuals can represent the will of the people. It has been rejected by many groups both inside and outside Swaziland for its lack of democratic credentials.

There are 55 Tinkhundla centres in Swaziland and each elects one member of parliament.

Last month, (February 2009) Dlamini announced that a new government department of Tinkhundla Administration and Development would be created with the mandate to expand the government services made available through Tinkhundla centres.

Musa Hlophe, Co-ordinator of the Swaziland Coalition of Concerned Civic Organisations (SCCCO), was reported to have ‘laughed his lungs out’ when informed about the creation of the new ministry.

According to the Times of Swaziland, Hlophe said the new ministry was a waste of resources because it would not deliver on socio-economic needs of the citizenry. He said this was not surprising because it was unclear to most people how the Tinkhundla system worked and ‘only those who benefited from it knew how it worked’.

Don’t expect too much from the new department. According to the Swazi Observer, on the day it was announced that Gcokoma would head up the department, he revealed he hadn’t been told anything about it ‘so I cannot say much for now’.

The Times of Swaziland, the kingdom’s only independent daily newspaper, sees something sinister in the creation of the new department. ‘... the changes come across as a re-enforcement of the Tinkhundla system in disguise, given the rising calls for a system change by others’, it said in an editorial comment.

The Times says the move seems, ‘motivated by uncertainty as rising poverty levels have cost the country’s leadership loads of support at grassroots level and something needed to be done to buy time and win back some valuable support’.

The Times has a point. Following the elections in Swaziland in September 2008, the international community almost with one voice condemned the lack of democracy in Swaziland and branded the election a sham. This was repeated only last week by the United States in its annual country review of Swaziland.

Within Swaziland the pro-democracy movement is gaining ground, despite the efforts of the Swazi state to terrorise opposition voices.

The Tinkhundla system is not democratic and is the focus for much of the dissent. The Swazi Government stands or falls by Tinkhundla and that is why it is making to effort to prop up the crumbling structure.