ATTACK ON LYING SWAZI GOVERNMENT

The Swazi Government is under attack for lying to the United Nations about poverty and hunger in the kingdom.

It doctored a report on how much progress Swaziland has made on reaching the Millennium Development Goal (MDG) and changed it from ‘not likely’ to meet the target of ‘eradication of extreme poverty and hunger’ and made it read it could ‘potentially’ meet the target.

The Director of the Coordinating Assembly of Non Governmental Organisations (CANGO) Emmanuel Ndlangamandla, said CANGO and a number of stakeholders who represent all sectors of society had contributed to the drafting of the report, so the report did not just belong to government or the UN but it belongs to the Swazi nation.

Ndlangamandla told the Times of Swaziland, the only independent daily newspaper in the kingdom, ‘When drafting this report we looked at the scenarios based on the evidence on the ground, and we aspired to produce a document that would provide us with an opportunity for national reflection.'

He added, ‘What government has done is really unfortunate, especially because the draft report did not undermine government in any way. All over the continent countries are struggling with these goals. Why shouldn’t we be frank about our situation here? How are we going to get assistance now?’.

The Times also reported that the government also doctored the part of the UN report that said Swaziland would not meet the target to reduce by three quarters the maternal mortality ratio. The Government changed it to say the kingdom ‘might’ meet the target.

SWAZI STUDENTS – CANGO REPLIES

The following is a press statement from the Coordinating Assembly of Non-Governmental Organisations (CANGO) in response to a statement issued by the Swaziland National Union of Students (SNUS), published on this website yesterday (1 February 2010).

Regarding the press statement issued by Mr. Maxwell Dlamini-SNUS Organising Secretary- whereby he states that CANGO Director refused to pay for transport for students yet had made undertaking to do so and latter stated that "they will not support their (students) struggles because ‘we (students) want to overthrow the state’.

The CANGO Director as you will note on the paragraph that follows never made an undertaking to support this event. We would like to express our dismay at this unfortunate statement which is malicious and is meant to tarnish the image of CANGO.

The truth is that the CANGO Director met Mr. Bheki Khumalo just before the closure of offices on Friday the 29th January 2010. Mr Khumalo informed the Director that SNUS forwarded a request, which was received by the office on the 26th January 2010 and SNUS was appealing for response as the mass meeting for students was scheduled to be held on Saturday the 30th January 2010.

The Director informed Mr. Khumalo that that CANGO has no resources to support SNUS meeting, as all activities and budgets thereof for CANGO's financial year (March 31st 2010) were finalized. Mr. Khumalo promised to convey the message to the SNUS leadership and requested teh Director to communicate teh CANGO's position in writing.

We would like to be understood that we are an umbrella body for NGOs in Swaziland. We, like any other NGO, rely on external funding to pursue our work. Donors in this regard provide resources according to specific projects. It therefore follows that it is not possible to divert funds to activities not budgeted and agreed with our funders.

We call upon SNUS leadership to rebut this statement as it is devoid of any truth.

Emmanuel Ndlangamandla

CANGO Director