Wednesday, February 28, 2018

PM SHARE DIVIDENDS UNDER SCRUTINY



Swaziland’s Prime Minister Barnabas Dlamini stands to be paid E150,000 (US$13,000) from a company that has shares in controversial cell phone company MTN Swaziland.

Dlamini in his recently-published autobiography claimed to own 0.1 percent of the investment holding company Swaziland Empowerment Limited (SEL) which has 19 percent shares at MTN Swaziland, the Sunday Observer newspaper in Swaziland reported (25 February 2018).

The Observer calculated the Prime Minister was expected to get an estimated E23,856, before taxes this financial year. It estimated the PM, who is not elected but appointed by absolute monarch King Mswati III, had been paid ‘about E150,000 in total since March 2016’.

In Swaziland seven in ten of the population live in abject poverty with incomes less than E23 per day.

Until July 2017 when Swazi Mobile launched, MTN was a monopoly provider of cell phone services in the kingdom.

King Mswati is a major shareholder in MTN Swaziland. The Sunday Times in Johannesburg reported in July 2014 he holds 10 percent of the shares and is referred to by the company as an ‘esteemed shareholder’. It said MTN had paid E114 million (US$11.4 million at the then exchange rate) to the King over the previous five years. 

The Sunday Times reported that at the time MTN had a monopoly in Swaziland and was used by 57 percent of the population. It said MTN was able to keep prices high, citing the cost of 300 megabytes of data in Swaziland as E149, while in South Africa the same amount of data cost E79.

Prime Minister Dlamini’s holdings in SEL have been a matter of controversy for years. As long ago as 2011, Musa Holphe, a human rights campaigner and journalist, highlighted that Dlamini’s holdings in MTN might be a conflict of interest since he was also a key decision maker in the affairs of MTN’s only rival for telephone services, the parastatal, Swaziland Posts and Telecommunications Corporation (SPTC).

Writing in the Times Sunday, a newspaper in Swaziland, (26 September 2011), Holphe said, ‘Since SEL’s main, if not its only, investment is MTN Swaziland it is important to understand that the value of the SEL shares will be slashed if anything happens that affects MTN’s profitability.

‘This government has been at the centre of many decisions that affect the ability of SPTC to properly compete with MTN. 

‘Each government decision seems designed to hamper SPTC and enable MTN to continue its monopoly and unfairly increase the wealth of its shareholders which as we now know includes the private wealth of the prime minister. 

‘It is shocking to see how much money is generated by MTN and that, in spite of the grinding poverty of the majority of us; vast riches are still secretly flowing into the pockets of the elite.’

He added, ‘He may say that it is all perfectly legal but that is the wrong test. Compliance with the law is a minimum standard not a maximum. 

‘Leaders must be held to higher standards. Even if what the PM does is perfectly legal, we should still be asking, is it honourable, decent and wise? Is it moral? 

He added, ‘Corruption is like pregnancy – you cannot be a little bit pregnant and you cannot be a little corrupt. You either are or you are not. It is time to tackle corruption properly and declare all interests openly. Ministers with interests must excuse themselves from any decision-making that affects those interests not just the major ones.’

In 2009, Earl Irvine, then US Ambassador to Swaziland, wrote a confidential cable (later published by Wikileaks) in which he said the King operated in his own financial interest. Part of the cable said, ‘Royal politics and King Mswati’s business interests appear to have caused the ouster of Mobile Telephone Network (MTN) CEO Tebogo Mogapi and halted parastatal Swaziland Post and Telecommunications Corporation (SPTC) from selling the MTN shares it owns to raise money for a Next Generation Networks (NGN) cell phone project. 

‘Industry and press observers privately indicated that the King, who already owns many MTN shares, had wanted to purchase the MTN shares himself at a cheaper price than the buyer, MTN, was offering SPTC. 

‘Government officials later prevented the sale, and recently did not renew the work permit for CEO Mogapi, a South African citizen, apparently in retaliation for his role in the transaction, as well as the CEO’s reported decision to oppose government efforts to use the MTN network for electronic surveillance on political dissidents.’

The cable went on, ‘The government’s halt of parastatal SPTC’s sale of MTN shares demonstrates the impact the King’s and other influential individuals’ private business interests can have on business transactions in Swaziland. 

‘Government officials would likely prefer a more malleable Swazi CEO at MTN who would cooperate more fully with royal and government wishes.’

A research article written by Ewan Sutherland of the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa, and published in December 2014 in the Communicatio academic journal, explored telecommunications in Swaziland and concluded there was no competition for mobile phones in the kingdom and ‘the monarch and his cronies are financially tied to Swazi MTN, seeking to neuter the state-owned SPTC. The government has no concern for consumers, service delivery or economic growth, with the King and his prime minister looking after their personal financial interests.’

Sutherland wrote, ‘[I]t is difficult to see how any investor could have confidence, unless it had the sovereign on their side and, more likely, in their pocket. 

‘The monarch has a significant and lucrative investment in the principal operator, with the effect of confusing and confounding an already feeble system of governance. The opaque profit-seeking of the King conflicts with the purported aspiration to good governance of telecommunications markets and the interests of his subjects. In a constitutional monarchy, arrangements can be made to keep the investments of a monarch separate from politics, allowing for transparency, accountability to parliament and the avoidance of interference with governance (e.g., Japan and the Netherlands).

‘A feudal monarchy knows no such distinction, there are no conflicts of interest for ministers, regulators and directors – they obey their king. It echoes the problems of Morocco, where its king has private interests in telecommunications, has ministers sit on the supervisory board of the state-owned operator, and he appoints the regulator and is head of the judiciary.’

See also

DOES PM HAVE A FORTUNE FROM MTN?

CENSORSHIP AT ‘TIME SUNDAY’

TRUE LIFE OF SWAZI PRIME MINISTER

KING LIVES LAVISHLY ON FIRMS’ DIVIDENDS

Tuesday, February 27, 2018

MAN TOO POOR TO PAY FINE SENT TO JAIL



A refugee in Swaziland was sent to jail because he was too poor to pay traffic fines.

The man, a Congolese, who is under asylum protection in the kingdom, was convicted of three offences including driving without a licence.

John Dambayi, aged 38, was fined E1,000 (US$86) by Siteki Senior Magistrate Donald Mavuso with the option of four months in jail. He could not afford the fine and went to jail.

According to a report in the Swazi Observer on Monday (26 February 2018), Dambayi told the court that he was a refugee who had no source of income as he was prohibited from engaging in employment.

It is not unusual in Swaziland where seven in ten people live in abject poverty with incomes less than US$2 per day for people to be sent to jail because they cannot afford the fine option.

In August 2014 it was reported that more than 1,000 people were in jail in Swaziland because they were too poor to pay fines. That was nearly three in ten of the entire prison population.

In Swaziland offenders are often given the option of jail time or paying a fine. Correctional Services Commissioner Isaiah Ntshangase said at the time there were people in jail because they could not pay fines for a range of matters, including traffic offences, theft by false pretences, malicious injury to property and fraud.

Figures revealed that 1,053 of 3,615 inmates in Swazi jails were there because they did not have the money to pay the fine option - 29.1 percent of the entire prison population.

Ntshangase said the numbers in prison because they could not pay fines was growing.

See also
POOR CHILDREN IN SWAZI JAIL

Monday, February 26, 2018

U.S. AMBASSADOR SUPPORTS PARTIES


The United States Ambassador to Swaziland Lisa Peterson has spoken out in support of banned political parties in the kingdom where King Mswati III rules as an absolute monarch.

Parties are not allowed to contest for elections and people and groups that advocate for democratic reform are prosecuted under the Suppression of Terrorism Act.

International organisations such as the European Union and Commonwealth routinely declare that Swaziland’s elections are not free and fair because parties are banned from taking part. After the last election in 2013, the Commonwealth Observer Mission and African Union separately called for a review of the kingdom’s constitution to un-ban parties. 

The King chooses the Prime Minister and top government ministers. 

Peterson spoke at a meeting of editors on Friday (23 February 2018). She said polling suggested that people in Swaziland did not support political parties. She said, ‘For me that speaks to people not seeing what a political party can do for them. You need to build understanding and policy of advocacy at the grass root level so that you can get a number of people thinking in a similar manner.’

She said political entities that supported parties in Swaziland needed to work on the ground to change people’s minds about the value of political parties. ‘Each party or grouping needs to go about it in the way that works best,’ she said.

She added, ‘That plays a part in getting every average Swazi to understand why a political parties might be useful.’

Three political parties have already announced their intention to seek a court ruling to un-ban parties ahead of the election due some time in late 2018. They are the People’s United Democratic Movement (PUDEMO); the Swaziland Democratic Party (SWADEPA) and the Ngwane National Liberatory Congress (NNLC).


See also


SWAZILAND POLITICAL PARTIES: THE FACTS

PARTIES STILL BANNED FROM ELECTION


ONE IN THREE WANT POLITICAL PARTIES

SWAZIS WANT DEMOCRACY - SURVEY

EU TELLS KING: ‘FREE PARTIES’
UK CALLS FOR PARTIES TO BE UN-BANNED
NO PARTIES AT SWAZILAND ELECTION