Solomon Dube, Director of the Swaziland Civil Aviation
Authority (SWACAA), took a flight of fancy this week when he claimed that The
Royal Swazi National Airways Corporation (RSNAC) will fly to 10 countries
from Sikhuphe Airport, which has yet to be opened.
Dube told
local media that RSNAC, which at present has no aircraft and no routes,
would fly to nine destinations in Africa and one in Asia.
The Times Sunday newspaper said the
airline ‘will fly to destinations such as the United Arab Emirates, Kenya,
Ethiopia, Zambia, Rwanda, South Africa, Namibia, Tanzania, Uganda and Botswana
among others’.
The newspaper quoted Dube saying the Swazi Government had
signed ‘Bilateral Air Service Agreements’ with the destination countries.
The Times
reported, ‘Dube said the signing of the accord meant that the Swaziland
airline, which also used to be called Lijubantsendzele, will fly to these
countries and also the destination countries airlines would also fly into
Swaziland.’
But, either Dube is not telling the full truth or the Times has made a blunder. This is
because ‘Bilateral Air Service Agreements’ are accords that allow aircraft of
one nation to fly over airspace of another: they do not mean that airlines
automatically have rights to land at airports and run commercial routes into
the country.
Sikhuphe is the airport that for the past 10 years has
been under construction in a Swazi wilderness, about 80 km from the kingdom’s
capital, Mbabane. Despite claims over the past years that international
airlines are keen to fly into Sikhuphe, no agreements have been signed.
No independent study on the need for Sikhuphe Airport was
ever undertaken and the main impetus behind its construction has been King
Mswati III, who rules Swaziland as sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch.
He believes the airport will lend credibility to his dream to make Swaziland a
‘First World’ nation by 2022.
This is not the first time SWACAA has claimed a false
success for Sikhuphe. The date for the airport’s opening in 2010 was missed
and has been put back a number of times since. In November 2013, SWACAA said
the airport
was now completed and operational, but no flights have been in or out
since.
Also in November 2013, SWACAA confirmed that the Swazi Government
was ready to recreate the RSNAC and would set about purchasing a 100-seater jet
at an estimated cost of E700 million (US$70 million). This compares to the E125
million budgeted
for free primary school education in Swaziland this year. It is not clear
where the money to buy the aircraft would come from.
If Dube is correct and RSNAC is set to fly to 10
destinations, the airline would probably need a minimum of 10 aircraft to
service the routes. For that to happen, Swaziland would have to spend about E7
billion on aircraft. Such a sum of money would bankrupt the kingdom. To put the
cost in context earlier this week the Central Bank of Swaziland
announced that the kingdom’s Gross Official Reserves were E8.24 billion at
the month ended November 2013.
Media reports in Swaziland suggest the cost of Sikhuphe has
been about E3
billion so far from an initial budget of E500 million.
As long ago as 2003, the International Monetary
Fund said Sikhuphe 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.
There is no
obvious need for the new airport. Major airports already exist less than an
hour’s flying time away in South Africa with connecting routes to Swaziland and
there is no reason to suspect passengers would want to use the airport at
Sikhuphe as an alternative.
Swaziland’s present airport at Matsapha only carries
about 70,000 passengers a year.
See also
PROMISE TO OPEN KING’S AIRPORT BROKEN
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