King Mswati III, the absolute monarch of Swaziland /
Eswatini has chosen a businessman with no political experience as his new Prime
Minister.
Ambrose Dlamini is best
known as the chief executive officer (CEO) of MTN Swaziland, the mobile
phone service provider. The King receives millions of dollars a year in
dividends from MTN. He was given 10
percent of MTN Swaziland when he granted it the licence to operate as the only
mobile phone service provider in his kingdom.
Swaziland
is not a democracy; the King chooses the Prime Minister and government members.
The King appointed six
members of his own family to the House of Assembly and eight
to the Senate earlier in October 2018. Political parties are banned from
taking part in elections. No members of the Swazi Senate are elected by the people.
The King announced his choice of PM on Saturday (27
October 2018). He
had previously said he had been told whom to appoint by an angel that had
appeared to him in a prayer.
King Mswati at one time was estimated by Forbes to have a personal net worth (assets minus liabilities)
of US$200 million. Seven in ten of the people in Swaziland live on incomes
less than the equivalent of US$2 per day.
In 2014, The
Sunday Times newspaper in South Africa
reported that MTN ‘brokered [a] cosy relationships with the monarchy’.
It reported that the King held 10 percent of the shares in MTN in
Swaziland and was referred to by the company as an ‘esteemed shareholder’. It
said MTN had paid R114 million (US$11.4 million) to the King over the five
years up to 2014. The payments have continued since then but the total amount
the King has received is not publicly known.
The Sunday Times reported in
2014 that 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.
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.
He went on, ‘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.’
Ambrose Dlamani later became CEO of MTN.
The US Ambassador’s cable went on, ‘Government officials would likely prefer
a more malleable Swazi CEO at MTN who would cooperate more fully with royal and
government wishes.’
See also
Swaziland King says angels told him whom to appoint
as new Prime Minister, but he won’t yet reveal the name
Swazi
election – sponsored by MTN
Does PM
have a fortune from MTN?
US decries
Swazi King on MTN deal
Phones
cut as Swaziland protests
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