Thursday, October 15, 2009

NOW, THE SWAZILAND OIL FANTASY

Do we never learn?

Just as we hear that a grand plan for a 5 billion US dollar power plant has bitten the dust, news breaks that the Swaziland King is ‘negotiating’ a deal to develop a ‘multi-million’ dollar oil refinery in the kingdom.

King Msawti III, sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch, on one of his regular trips to the Middle East, has asked ‘business captains’ in the oil state of Qatar to help Swaziland find up to E35 billion (4.8 billion US dollars) to develop a ‘world class’ facility that will store at least a three-month supply of fuel for Swaziland.

The Swazi Observer, in effect the king’s own newspaper, reports that the construction should be completed in about six years. Regular readers of this blog will note that this six-year timescale is an improvement on the three years completion time that the king and the fantasists who surround him usually put on their (never completed) projects.

Phiwa Ginindza, chief executive of the Swaziland Investments Promotions Authority (SIPA), who is part of a delegation presently in the Gulf States with the king, has reportedly been touting the plan around Qatar.

Ginindza told the Observer that it was clear that Swaziland needs to work extra hard to see the project through. That’s an understatement. As I reported in April 2009, SIPA has a poor record in attracting investment into Swaziland.

It admitted in its performance report for 2006 to 2008 that it had only managed to attract five foreign investments into the country in three years, with a total of 720 jobs.The businesses that were set up are very basic: one is involved in producing starch from cassava and another makes plastic bags. Two are involved in manufacturing mining drills and hand held tools and the fifth is yet another Taiwanese textile company.

Do we really expect someone with 4.8 billion bucks to spend to come running to SIPA?

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