We should not believe the recently-appointed editor of the Swazi Observer when he claims his newspaper refuses to be anyone’s lapdog.
Thulani Thwala reckons the Observer publishes ‘news and information to assist [readers to] make informed decisions’.
Writing in his own newspaper today(22 December 2010), he makes the outlandish claim that the Observer, a newspaper in effect owned by King Mswati III, is ‘getting closer and closer to our target of being the best read in the country’.
Nonsense. It is impossible to get official figures about the number of newspapers the Observer and its rival, the Times of Swaziland, the only independent daily in the kingdom, sell each day. But anyone in Swaziland with eyes to see and ears to hear knows that the Observer sells a fraction of the number of copies of the Times. And the reason for this is simple: people in Swaziland see the Observer for what it is: the mouthpiece of the king and ruling power in the kingdom.
Thwala should talk to his boss Musa Ndlangamandla, the Observer Chief Editor. Ndlangamandla was proud to state in March 2010, ‘... our collective stand as a newspaper is that the integrity of Swaziland as a democratic State and His Majesty King Mswati III as the legitimate leader of the Swazi nation, must never be compromised in any way.’
Thwala himself stated, in his article ‘We are a proud watchdog for King and country and refuse to be anyone’s lapdog.’ He is so wrong, the newspaper shouldn’t be a watchdog for the king, it should be a watchdog for the people.
If Thwala wants the Observer to be an independent newspaper that publishes ‘news and information to assist them make informed decisions’, let him publish details of the Swazi Royal Family sex scandal from August 2010 that was reported around the world but not in Swaziland.
Let him also explain to his readers how it is that King Mswati has a personal fortune, estimated by Forbes in 2009 to be US$ 2 million, when seven in ten of his subjects have to exist in abject poverty, earning less than US1 a day.
Once those reports appear in the paper we can believe the Observer is independent. Until then we should continue to see it merely as a propaganda sheet for the king.
With the call from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for Swaziland to cut back on public expenditure to stop the kingdom from going broke ringing in our ears, now is a good time to look at the cost of the Swazi Royal Family to the taxpayer.
It is notoriously difficult to get at the truth of the cost of King Mswati III, sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, and his huge and increasing extended family, but if we put together facts that we do know, it becomes clear that the Royal Family is a huge drain on the Swazi national budget.
Recently some Swaziland politicians called for an inquiry into the amount of money the Royal Family has spent this year on trips abroad this year.
The family of King Mswati want the amount of taxpayers’ money spent on the Swazi Royal Family on trips abroad cut back.
Already the family of King Mswati III, has spent E41 million (4.6 million US dollars) in four months. The Swazi Government headed by Barnabas Dlamini, who was illegally appointed as Prime Minister by King Mswati, has budgeted E95 million for royal family trips abroad for the present financial year. Now, the Royals have asked for more cash.
Members of the Swaziland Finance Committee demanded to know if the government is monitoring the number of Royals going abroad at the taxpayers’ expense and they want the amount spent on them reduced.
This is only a drop in the ocean of spending undertaken outside the borders of Swaziland by the Royal Family.
In August 2009 the world (but not people in Swaziland) learned that five of King Mswati’s wives (he is said to have 13 but nobody knows for sure since this is information that his Swazi subjects are not allowed to have) went on a worldwide shopping spree costing at least 6 million US dollars.
As I reported at the time, the media in Swaziland were warned not to report on the trip because it would harm the king’s reputation. Media houses were told they would face sanctions, including possible closure, if word got out.
It is not known where the money for these trips came from, but according to Forbes in the United States, King Mswati himself has a personal fortune estimated at 200 million US dollars.
Just where the king gets his money from is a carefully guarded secret, but according to Afrik.com he owns (among other things) 10 per cent of every mining company in Swaziland.
Forbes says King Mswati is the beneficiary of two funds created by his father Sobhuza II in trust for the Swazi nation. During his reign, he has absolute discretion over use of the income, which has allowed him to build palaces for each of his wives and stay at five-star hotels when abroad.
We also know that the people of Swaziland have to pay for the king’s extravagances. Last year (2008) they were forced to spend about 10 million dollars on a party to ‘celebrate’ the king’s 40th birthday and the 40th anniversary of the kingdom’s independence.
As well as his personal wealth, King Mswati receives money from the Swazi taxpayer. In this year’s Swaziland national budget he gets E130 million for his family’s upkeep.
In March 2009, I reported the national budget for Swaziland put aside E130 million for King Mswati and his family. This figure, which is almost certainly only a fraction of the money the king draws from the Swazi people, is more than the money Swaziland will spend on capital expenditure for education (E113 million) or capital expenditure on social security and welfare (E73 million).
The E130 million for the king listed in the budget as ‘royal emoluments and civil list’ is an increase on the E85.2 million he was given by Swazi taxpayers for the financial year 2007/2008.
The figures are part of the annual budget for Swaziland that was approved by the House of Assembly. To put that E130 million into some context: in Swaziland 70 percent of the families of one million Swazi people live on less than E10 a day, while the Royal Family gets by on a third of a million a day.
In the present financial year, the total amount of income tax collected from individuals working in Swaziland is estimated to be E1,080 million, or put another way it means that each person who pays tax in the kingdom is giving more than E8 in every 100 to the king’s family.
In April 2008, the Nation magazine, an independent monthly magazine of news and comment in Swaziland, reported that the king was receiving funds illegally from the state as the finance minister did not act in accordance with theRoyal Emoluments and Civil List Act as amended in 1998.
An analysis by the Nation said the king was receiving illegally what it described as an ‘obscene’ E220m for 2008-2009 from public funds. This is a 159 percent increase on the previous year and roughly five percent of Swaziland’s national budget. The Royal Family combined get a total of E500m, the Nation calculated.
Even though we can’t find accurate figures on the income of King Mswati and the Royal Family it is clear he is not short of a dollar.
In April 2009, the king bought 20 top-of-the-range armour-plated Mercedes Benz S600 Pullman Guards cars for his wives at an estimated cost of E2.5 million (about 250,000 US dollars) each.
When the Times Sunday, an independent newspaper in Swaziland, tried to find out where the money for cars came from it met a stone wall.The king’s Private Secretary Sam Mkhombe referred all questions to the King’s Office Chief Officer, Bheki Dlamini.
However, Dlamini said the cars were not purchased through the King’s Office. He could not, however, explain to the newspaper why they were delivered at the royal residence.
The newspaper said at first he did not want to comment on the issue, but eventually said that the King’s Office was not responsible for the cars. However, his subsequent comments fell short of confirming that the vehicles could have been purchased by the king.
‘The king has various accounts that are not run through this office (King’s Office),’ he said.
Unfortunately, he did not elaborate on what kind of ‘accounts’ the king had.
The king is world renowned for his lavish lifestyle; his taste for expensive cars and the opulence of his palaces. and has a long history of extravagant personal spending for himself and his family.
While he has fabulous wealth, seven in ten Swazis live in abject poverty, earning less than one US dollar a day and the kingdom has the highest HIV infection rate in the world (40 percent).
I say ‘more’ because we know he has a personal fortune estimated at 200 Million US dollars which at the current exchange rate puts him over the top at E1.58 billion.
King Mswati reckons other people in Swaziland should come and join him Well all right, he didn’t quite say it that way, but he did say that people who already had money should go out and get even more.
But, unlike himself, King Mswati, sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, doesn’t want the new billionaires to steal it from the Swazi people; he wants them to be more entrepreneurial.
The king was speaking at the Entrepreneur of the Year awards ceremony on Friday night (30 October 2009) when he told the audience that the entrepreneurs that currently exist must thrive and look at more ways to make money instead of being content with what they already had.
According to the Swazi Observer, the newspaper in effect owned by the king, he said ‘he was amazed at how much drive the billionaires of the Middle East he met while touring the region recently had to make more money’.
The king seems to have got a little carried away with his experience of rubbing shoulders with the rich. ‘In my trips abroad I met very rich people, very rich. They have lots and lots of money but they are always looking at new ways of making more money. The way they behave you would swear they have nothing, but they have a lot of money,’ the Observer reported him saying.
The newspaper doesn’t tell us how the creation of billionaires would help the ordinary Swazi people (seven in ten live in abject poverty earning less than one US dollar a day). Maybe King Mswati has a cunning plan. Who knows? Because so far all he has shown is that he wants to support greedy rich people get even richer.
Swaziland’s King Mswati III is the 15th richest royal in the world, with more money than his counterparts in Spain or Japan.
Even though 70 per cent of Swazis earn less than one US dollar a day, King Mswati is said to have a net worth of 200 million dollars.
The most recent estimate from Forbes Magazine in the United States reveals that as some royals get ‘poorer’, King Mswati just keeps coining it in.
So if the rest of Swaziland is so poor, where does King Mswati, sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, get his money from? This is a carefully guarded secret but according to Afrik.com he owns (among other things) 10 per cent of every mining company in Swaziland.
The website also reminds us that the king has a ‘penchant for luxury’ and is reckoned to have 14 wives (no one is really sure about the number he has since this is information the Swazi people are not allowed to have) each with a personal palace.
Forbessays King Mswati is the beneficiary of two funds created by his father Sobhuza IIin trust for the Swazi nation. During his reign, he has absolute discretion over use of the income, which has allowed him to build palaces for each of his wives and stay at five-star hotels when abroad.
We also know that the people of Swaziland have to pay for the king’s extravagances. Last year they were forced to spend about something like 10 million dollars on a party to ‘celebrate’ the king’s 40th birthday and the 40th anniversary of the kingdom’s independence.
As well as his personal wealth, King Mswati receives money from the Swazi taxpayer. In this year’s Swaziland national budgethe gets E130 million (about 13 million US dollars) for his family’s upkeep.
This is more than the money Swaziland will spend on capital expenditure for education (E113 million) or capital expenditure on social security and welfare (E73 million).
Or put another way, 70 percent of the families of one million Swazi people live on less than E10 a day, while the Royal Family gets by on a third of a million a day.
Reports in the Swazi media and on the internet said the king paid E2.5 million (about 250,000 US dollars) for each of the cars.
Not true, says, the king’s men. The Swazi Observer, the newspaper in effect owned by King Mswati, reports an unnamed ‘source’ saying the purchase price was ‘far less’ than reported. The source doesn’t tell us how much the king did pay.
This lack of information doesn’t seem to trouble the Observer which goes on to report the source saying, ‘Moreover, the status of our Royalty and the pride and value we attach to the institution of the Monarchy dictates that they project the correct image that inspires confidence. The cars and their safety features befit that status. So there is really nothing wrong with the purchase.’
I love the bit about the cars befitting the status of the Swazi Royal Family. About seven in ten of Swaziland’s near one million population live in abject poverty earning less than one US dollar a day, Swaziland has the highest rate of HIV infection in the world and last year six in ten Swazis needed some form of international food aid to fend off hunger.
On that basis the ‘status’ of the kingdom is pretty poor and the king should probably be riding around in an oxen cart not in a fleet of cars that can resist an attack with small arms projectiles, a grenade or other explosive.
The cars also include high-end audio, an intercom, 19-inch flat screen display, DVD player, refrigerator and wood trim as standard.
The ‘source’ told the Observer that the money to buy the cars was not from the government.
‘This was not abuse of taxpayers’ money and the money was not transferred from a government ministry, but these were private Royal funds. Remember that there is a budget for Royalty in Swaziland as is the case elsewhere in the world. Even the biggest democracies have such budgets,’ the ‘source’ said.
The Observer didn’t see the contradiction in the statement. The money was from private funds, but there is a budget for royalty. In the latest budget announced in March the taxpayer was expected to fork out E130 million this year for the king and his family.
It is estimated that King Mswati has a fortune of 200 million US dollars (E2 billion), but it is not clear where this money comes from, but it is understood that the king takes a royalty (no pun intended) on a number of businesses, rents and mineral rights in Swaziland.
Now back to the cost of the cars. It is difficult to find prices for the Mercedes Benz S600 Pullman Guard. There is a saying among dealers in expensive cars that if customers have to ask the price they can’t afford it. Therefore, prices don’t get talked about too much.
I have been able to find one dealer offering the 2009 Mercedes-Benz S65 AMG for a base price of 199,825 US dollars (nearly E20 million). I don’t know if this is the model the king bought and I don’t know how much more you have to pay for extras, but the price is probably a good ball park figure and not far short of what people were saying the king paid when the news first broke.
If you want a closer look at the cars click below for a promotional video placed on YouTube.
