IS SWAZI KING READY TO SACK PM?

Has King Mswati III signed the political death warrant for Barnabas Dlamini, Swaziland’s illegally-appointed Prime Minister?

As I predicted in December 2010, the Observer newspapers, in effect owned and edited by King Mswati III, are continuing their calls for Dlamini to resign.

The latest call comes today (22 January 2011) from Alec Lushaba, editor of the Weekend Observer. And he seems to be writing with the full support of the King.

Lushaba writes in his own newspaper, ‘My view is that the prime minister and his collective failed His Majesty the King in 2010. Their actions have put the name of king and country into disrepute and for that and that alone, they have to go.’

He goes on to say that the King’s ‘image’ internationally has been damaged.

You will notice that Lushaba says Dlamini has failed the King and not the people. The King’s ‘good name’ is really all the newspaper cares about.

Lushaba also accuses Dlamini of making the King look like a liar over support for the Royal Jozini Big Six, the tourist development that was closed down by the King in November 2010.

Lushaba previously told us that his newspaper would never publish anything about King Mswati, sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, without the King’s permission.

So we must assume that the King himself supports the Observer’s call for Dlamini’s resignation.

Lushaba writes, ‘... it is unSwazi and foreign in our culture to use His Majesty the King and iNgwenyama as your shield when under attack. If anything, it is expected that iNgwenyama uses or sacrifices his lieutenants when under-siege.’

He goes on, ‘Now that iNgwenyama is officially out of seclusion, what do we expect him to do?’

I cannot believe Lushaba would dare write such words unless he had the permission of the King.

Dlamini should start collecting cardboard boxes now in readiness for the office clearout he will surely have to make shortly.

The only question that remains is does he resign or is he sacked?

See also

‘SWAZI OBSERVER’ PLOTS FOR THE KING

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2010/12/swazi-observer-plots-for-king.html

IS IT TIME TO PULL THE TRIGGER?

http://www.observer.org.sz/index.php?news=20171

SINISTER FORCES AND JOZINI PROJECT

Meanwhile back at the Jozini Big Six project ...

Acres of newspaper space is being given over to the comings and goings in Lavumisa, where King Mswati III, Swaziland’s ruler and sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, has seized (sorry, cancelled the contract on) the E3 billion (425 million US dollars) project for a massive tourism development in one of the kingdom’s poorest regions.

As is typical of the Swazi media most of the coverage has been in the minute detail – word for word what the original contract said, and so on. What is mostly absent is any analysis of why the king seemingly stole the project and what this will mean for the future of foreign investment in Swaziland.

But there was one good article of analysis this week – in the Times of Swaziland, the kingdom’s only independent daily newspaper.

Needless to say, the article wasn’t written by a journalist, but by an anonymous ‘guest writer.’

It was an examination of how nothing had changed in Swaziland since the new constitution of 2005 And a small part was devoted to Jozini.

The writer wondered what influence the labadzala, whom I would define as the ‘faceless’ elders in Swaziland who seem to control everything for their own benefit and without recourse to law and definitely not the constitution.

Here is what he / she said about Jozini, ‘This is where once again we see that the authorities of this land are acting in a high handed and seemingly arbitrary manner. This is one of the biggest Foreign Direct Investment schemes that the country has attracted in many, many years and has the potential to be a long term earner in high spending tourist revenues. Most tourists only stay in Swaziland for one or two days and rarely leave the Mbabane—Ezulwini—Manzini corridor. It was also a pilot model of proper investment where the investors were given a 99 year land lease, and they developed strong social and economic ties with the Lavumisa community, providing employment and development in the most forgotten and deprived area of our country.

‘This project had the potential to increase and diversify the tourist product for the whole of the nation. The investors have now been told they have breached the terms of the lease and must leave. They have not been properly served with legal papers, they have not been properly told what the breach is and the government got the Attorney General himself to serve the papers.

‘Jim Brown, the Director of Jozini, believes he will win in court—I wish him good luck with that one. In each case that government fought in the last session of the Supreme Court government won. Just like it always did before the new constitution. But Brown, just like the South African farmers in Zimbabwe will have recourse to the South African Courts and will be able to get a judgment against the South African and Swazi governments for not protecting investments.

‘I also would like to know who is going to benefit from this project being killed off? It is definitely not the investors and it is not the people of the area. So do the labadzala have a partner lined up? They say they do not, but I would not be surprised if someone from the Middle East does not offer to capitalise the project in return for complete control.

The country will not see a cent and the people of Lavumisa will return to their previous condition of abject and continuing poverty.

‘The Jozini debacle has the potential to really bring our country to its knees. It actually reminds me of one project in which Sappi Usutu tried to empower its workers through their union. It was outsourcing one of its operations to Sapwu Branch at Sappi, but because the Union involved one Jan Sithole, labadzala would not hear any of that. I told them then that they were sending a wrong message to the foreign investor, both here and abroad. What foreign investor would seriously think of investing here if there are no legal rights or redresses open to it?’

To read the full article click here.

SWAZI KING SNATCHES $425m PROJECT

How not to run the Swazi economy: part 106.

King Mswati III, Barnabas Dlamini, the illegally-appointed Prime Minister of Swaziland, and Majozi Sithole, his (increasingly) inept Finance Minister have been shouting from the hilltops and travelling the globe (in luxury style) to implore business people to invest in the kingdom.

What they want is for companies to build things in Swaziland and create jobs, thereby contributing to the economy and getting the kingdom out of the financial mess it is presently in.

Not many take up the offer to supply Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) as it is called, and when they do what happens: the Swazi ‘elders’ gang up against them and run them out of town.

That’s what’s happened with the so-called Jozini Big Six Project in Lavumisa, one of the poorest parts of Swaziland. After a year of work, King Mswati has turned round and taken over the project and kept it for himself (sorry, kept it for ‘the Swazi nation’).

The Swazi Observer, the newspaper in effect owned by King Mswati, put is as clear as a bell, ‘The Royal Jozini Big Six property is now the property of His Majesty King Mswati III, the King and Ingwenyama of the Swazi Nation.’

Jozini Big Six is a massive project (so beloved of King Mswati: think Royal Science and Technology Park and Sikhuphe Airport). It was to comprise a marina village, hotel and spa, championship golf course, casino and conference centre, game reserve, craft market, medical centre, airfield and hangars and a staff accommodation village.

No one is sure how much the project was expected to cost, but the figure of E3 billion (425 million US dollars) has been quoted in the Swazi media. It was hoped it would create 3,000 jobs.

It was probably a bit of a fantasy to believe that such a project had any relevance to Swaziland, where seven in ten of the population live in abject poverty, earning less than one US dollar a day. The optimists thought it would attract tourists from outside the country.

There is a lot of mystery about exactly why King Mswati thought he could get away with seizing the project. One of Jozini Leasehold Limited (JLL) directors, Jim Brown, said the closure announcements were ‘patently unlawful, unconstitutional and contrary to the provisions of the lease’. The closure of the project will now be contested in courts, probably in both Swaziland and South Africa.

The arguments about the merits of the closure of the project are rumbling away in Swaziland and probably will never be resolved to everyone’s satisfaction.

But what a clear message this sends to the business world. Don’t invest here. And who now would want to invest in Swaziland? Only last week we were told that an E850 million ‘Royal Science and Technology Park’ was to be built in Swaziland, starting in April 2011. Why would anyone invest in such a project if they knew the king could snatch it away from them at any time?