SWAZILAND ON BRINK OF COLLAPSE

Now, it’s official: Swaziland is on the brink of financial collapse.

I’ve been warning for some time that the kingdom ruled by King Mswati III, sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch is living beyond its means.

With 70 percent of the one million population earning less than one US dollar a day and receipts from the Southern African Customs Union about to be cut to ribbons, there is next to no money coming into the government in Swaziland.

But the Swazi Government continues to give its members and ordinary MPs vast wage increases while at the same increasing money it pays to civil servants.

Now the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has warned enough is enough.

It met with the Swazi Finance Committee last week and said the government must stop its reckless expenditure. The salary bill for civil servants now stands at 54 percent of the kingdom’s budget.

Finance Committee chairman MP Marwick Khumalo last Friday told the Swazi Parliament, ‘We met with the IMF team on Wednesday and it must be said that they were not happy with Swaziland and a red flag was raised. The team said Swaziland was on the brink of collapsing because money was being wasted on paying government personnel and those in leadership positions.’

The IMF, according to Khumalo, warned of tough times ahead as the kingdom was also faced with dwindling SACU receipts and therefore could not afford to continue spending money on salaries for personnel.

As the Times of Swaziland, the kingdom’s only independent daily newspaper reports today (1 December 2009), this is not the first time that the IMF has sent such a warning to Swaziland as it previously advised the country to cut down on its number of government employees.

This advice has not been heeded, however, as the Swaziland’s illegally-appointed Prime Minister, Barnabas Dlamini, when taking up office, promised there would be no civil service retrenchments. Dlamini instead promised that all vacant government posts would be filled and this includes temporary teachers whom government has since engaged on a full time basis.

MORE DIRE AIDS NEWS FOR SWAZILAND

There’s more bad news on the HIV AIDS front in Swaziland.

On top of the revelation that 42 percent of pregnant women in Swaziland are HIV-positive (the highest in the world) comes a report showing that a quarter of the kingdom’s workforce is absent because of HIV AIDS.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) says this has hit Swaziland’s economy badly.

It says about 40 percent of the Swaziland’s one million people are thought to be unemployed; Swaziland would require annual growth of 3.6 percent to prevent worsening poverty, but currently struggles to achieve 2 percent. At present 70 percent of the people live in dire poverty earning less than one US dollar a day.

What this means is that Swaziland’s already poor economy is getting worse because of the HIV AIDS pandemic and there’s no reason to believe the situation will improve.

Swaziland is also much worse off than other countries in southern Africa. ‘According to a World Bank investment climate assessment survey [of Swaziland], over 50 percent of company managers reported much higher worker absenteeism due to sickness than other countries in Southern Africa,’ the IMF said.

The cost of replacing ill or deceased workers is expected to increase as the disease progresses from HIV to AIDS. Citing projections compiled by the International Labour Organisation (ILO), the IMF report said by 2016, eight percent of Swaziland's GDP would be devoted to training workers to replace those who have died from AIDS.

The IMF calculated that the cost of replacing teachers alone would be R2.3 billion (230 million US dolars) in the next seven years.

Along with basic fiscal and structural reforms, the IMF recommended that government place a greater emphasis on combating HIV AIDS.

King Mswati III, who has been criticised for his own role in allowing HIV to spread in Swaziland, made no mention of HIV AIDS when he opened parliament earlier this month (February 2009).