ONLY 822 PASSENGERS AT KING’S AIRPORT

Only 822 passengers per day on average are expected to use the new Sikhuphe Airport when it eventually opens, official figures reveal.

That is about the equivalent of two Jumbo Jets landing at the airport every 24 hours.

The airport, dubbed King Mswati III’s ‘vanity project’ by critics, is at least three years behind schedule. It was originally intended to open in time for the FIFA World Cup held in 2010 in neighbouring South Africa.

Despite endless problems, including a claim last week that the structure of the airport was defected and large jet airlines would not be able to land, King Mswati’s supporters continue to talk up the prospects of the airport. 

So far, no airline has signed up to land at the airport. Despite this, the Swaziland Civil Aviation Authority (SWACAA) has projected 300,000 passengers will use the airport each year, raising E7 million (US$700,000) per year in service charges. Although SWACAA did not say so, this equates to 822 passengers on average per day.

Deris Hlophe, SWACAA’s Air Transport Economist, revealed the figures to the Times of Swaziland. He also said aircraft parking fees at the airport could amount to E452,000 per year, with E137 being charged per aircraft.

The airport project, which has the personal support of King Mswati, sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, is being built in the wilderness of eastern Swaziland, at least 80km from major towns. Swaziland at present has an airport at Matsapha, close to the main cities of Mbabane and Manzini, but it only manages to attract about 70,000 passengers a year.

No needs-analysis was made before work started on building the airport, 10 years ago and so far no strategic plan has been revealed on how the airport intends to operate and how it will recoup the estimated E2.36 billion it has cost so far.

As long ago as 2003, the International Monetary Fund said it should not be built because it would divert funds away from much needed projects to fight poverty in Swaziland. About seven in ten of King Mswati’s 1.3 million subjects live in abject poverty, earning less than US$2 per day.

See also

KING’S AIRPORT ‘WILL BE UNUSABLE’

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2013/06/kings-airport-will-be-unusable.html

DOUBTS OVER PROSPECTS FOR AIRPORT

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2012/06/doubts-over-prospects-for-airport.html

ELECTION: CORRUPTION AT REGISTRATION

People are registering more than once ahead of the Swaziland national election due in September.

The revelation puts the integrity of the election in the kingdom ruled by the autocratic monarch King Mswati III in doubt.

The Elections and Boundaries Commission (EBC) said some people were offered bribes of E100 (US$10) or E200 to register twice.

EBC Chair Chief Gija Dlamini told local media, ‘There are people who have promised the voters that, if they vote for them twice, they will give them E100 or E200 and they get tempted.’ 

He said voters caught registering more than once would be arrested.

Despite double-registering, the total number of registrations for the election has fallen far short of the 600,000 people who are entitled to vote. Registration ends on 23 June and at the current rate of sign-up, the EBC might not reach 400,000 voters.

The registration process has been hampered by computer break-downs and staff who have not been trained properly to use them.

A campaign to boycott the election is gathering pace in Swaziland. Political parties are banned from taking part in the election and the parliament that is selected has no real power and acts as a rubber stamp for King Mswati, who rules Swaziland as sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch.

Last week the EBC said it did not have enough money to run the election successfully as the Swazi Government had cut its allocation from E200 million to E100 million. It is claimed that the EBC cannot afford enough staff to monitor the registration of voters across the whole kingdom. There is also doubt that staff working for the EBC will be paid on time.

The Times of Swaziland quoted Chief Gija saying, ‘The current state we are in is caused by the initial budgeting constraints. We had asked for E200 million, but government said it could only afford E100 million. It does not come as a surprise then when we struggle in some aspects. The money is now less and we are patching here and there.’ 

See also

SWAZI BOGUS ELECTION – SPONSORED BY MTN

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2013/06/swazi-election-sponsored-by-mtn.html

ACTIVIST STONES GININDZA DIES

Kenworthy News Media, June 14, 2013

Swazi activist Stones Ginindza passes away

SOURCE 

It was with great sorrow that Africa Contact has learnt that long-serving Foundation for Socio-Economic Justice (FSEJ) Secretary General to the Board, Stones Ginindza, has passed away, writes Kenworthy News Media

Stones Ginindza was a dear and long-serving partner of Africa Contact as well as being a major capacity in Swaziland’s democratic movement, where she also served as Secretary General for the Swaziland National Association of Teachers and Chairperson of Swaziland Network Campaign for Education for All, amongst other things.

”Stones has played an important role in the partnership between FSEJ and Africa Contact,” says Africa Contact’s Head of Secretariat, Morten Nielsen. ”As a member of FSEJ’s board, she understood straightaway that FSEJ could play an important strategic role in joining and strengthening the various grass roots movements that are members of FSEJ. Stones’ efforts have therefore been vital in making the democracy movement what it is today. We in Africa Contact, and the many others who fight for democracy in Swaziland, have lost an important ally with the passing away of Stones. She will be remembered and revered for her efforts in posterity.”

Stones visited Denmark in 2009, where she amongst other things spoke about political oppression in Swaziland at a public meeting arranged by Africa Contact, met with Danish Foreign Ministry officials, and gave interviews to the Danish press.

The will be a Memorial Service, Saturday June 15, and Stones will be laid to rest on Sunday June 16 after a short prayer in her home.

BULLYING CHIEFS RULE IN SWAZILAND

A demand by a chief in Swaziland that his subjects pay him E5,000 (more than two years’ income for some of his people) as a ‘tribute’ highlights the power chiefs have over people in the kingdom of the autocratic King Mswati III.

Chief Mshikashika Ngcamphalala, of  Kangcamphalala, is reported to have demanded the money from sugar cane farmers in his chiefdom.

He is demanding ‘setfulo’, which traditionally are tributes paid to the chief a person pays allegiance to.

The Times of Swaziland reported that he is demanding the money from 18 sugar cane farming schemes and he stands to collect E90,000 in total.

The paper reported that people in the area said, ‘members of the sugar cane associations were tentatively earning around E2,000 a year each on average’.

The chief has, through his inner council, sent letters to the sugar cane schemes in the area, reminding them to pay the ‘agreed’ E5,000 with immediate effect.

A source told the newspaper, ‘If you raise such a matter in my area, you will be viewed as radical and you will be victimised. Therefore, most people are complaining in hushed tones.’

Farmers denied that they consented to the arrangement of paying E5,000, claiming the idea was imposed.

Chief Ngcamphalala, described by the Times as, ‘well-known as a disciplinarian’, told the newspaper that he deserved a cut of the takings earned by his subjects. He criticised some of his subjects for talking to the media.

Chiefs in Swaziland have enormous powers over their subjects, because they are personally appointed by King Mswati III, sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, and traditionally they lead a band of area elders. They can decide who lives where and some have been known to banish people from their homes for not obeying rules. Sometimes chiefs demand tithes from their subjects such as a beast or money.

Chiefs also settle disputes such as over land, accusations of witchcraft, and wandering livestock that harm someone’s crops. Many also settle criminal disputes that probably should best be left to magistrates.

Chiefs are given stipends by the national treasury, but not salaries, and community members pay their allegiance to chiefs by weeding and harvesting their fields, and constructing the traditional mud and thatch huts usually found at chiefs’ homesteads.

In Swaziland chiefs do the king’s bidding at a local level. People know not to mess with the chief because their livelihood depends on his goodwill. In some parts of Swaziland the chiefs are given the power to decide who gets food that has been donated by international agencies and then the chiefs quite literally have power of life and death in such cases and with about a third of the population of Swaziland receiving food aid last year.

Chiefs can and do take revenge on their subjects who disobey them. There is a catalogue of cases in Swaziland. For example, Chief Dambuza Lukhele of Ngobelweni in the Shiselweni region banned his subjects from ploughing their fields because some of them defied his order to build a hut for one of his wives.

Nhlonipho Nkamane Mkhatswa, chief of Lwandle in Manzini, the main commercial city in Swaziland, reportedly stripped a woman of her clothing in the middle of a Swazi street in full view of the public because she was wearing trousers against his orders,

Chiefs know they have the backing of th eking if things go wrong.  Zwide Nxumalo defied a courtorder to stop being chief of the Ezikhotheni area in the Shiselweni region of Swaziland because he was appointed to the post by King Mswati III. Magistrates told him he couldn’t go ahead with a sibhimbi ceremony that officially introduces a new chief to his subjects because of a dispute about whether he had been correctly chosen as chief. So he went with the ceremony anyway.

 

See also

HAIL TO SWAZI CHIEFS

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2008/02/hail-to-swazi-chiefs.html

THREE ACTIVISTS ‘BEATEN IN JAIL’

Three members of the pro-democracy group SWAYOCO charged with sedition for carrying a banner at an election rally in Swaziland say they have been beaten up while in prison awaiting trial.

They say warders beat them at the Sidvwashini Correctional Facility. They told magistrates they now feared for their safety.

The accused, described in local media as members of the Swaziland Youth Congress, one of a number of pro-democracy groups banned in Swaziland, are Mfanawenkhosi Mbhunu Mtshali, 37, of Gobholo, Derrick Dickson Nkambule, 47, of Mgababa and Maxwell Manqoba Thandukukhanya Dlamini, 23.

They appeared before Magistrate Ndumiso Shongwe last week and claimed to be beaten and subjected to harsh treatment and were denied medical treatment.

Dlamini, who is the Secretary General of SWAYOCO, also said he was beaten by an officer from the Correctional Facility just as he was about to enter the court. 

The Swazi Observer newspaper reported he told Magistrate Shongwe that he had been beaten by an officer because he refused to have chains on his legs untied as it was normal that they entered in court with the chains. 

The chief escort from the Correction Facility, whom the newspaper did not name, told the court the three men had caused trouble in prison because they ‘sometimes sang struggle songs whilst in the cell and disrupted other inmates’.

The three men are charged under the Suppression of Terrorism Act 2008 and the Sedition and Subversive Act of 1938. They are alleged to have taken part in an illegal demonstration on 19 April 2013 and carried a huge banner inscribed with ‘subversive material’.

They were remanded back in custody pending committal to the High Court.

See also

POLICE BREAK UP ELECTION MEETING

http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2013/04/police-break-up-election-meeting.html