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| Africa Subsaharan |
| Swazi Royals Spend, Spend, Spend |
| 2018-05-04 |
| [All Africa] King Mswati the absolute monarch of impoverished Swaziland wore a watch worth US$1.6 million and a suit beaded with diamonds to his 50th birthday party. Days earlier he had received delivery of his second private jet. This one, an A340-300 Airbus, reportedly cost as much as US$30 million after VIP upgrades. These are examples of the King's lavish lifestyle. He has fleets of top-of-the-range BMW and Mercedes cars and he and his family travel the world in luxury. Meanwhile, ...back at the Hubba Hubba Club, Big Shirley was still trying to snatch Nunzio bald-headed. She was already halfway there... seven in ten of his 1.1 million subjects live in abject poverty with incomes less than the equivalent of US$2 per day. Media in Swaziland, where political parties are banned, are heavily censored and do not report on the excesses of the King and his Royal family. Therefore, it is difficult to determine their full extent, but it has been possible to piece together some of the details. In 2012 he acquired his first private jet, estimated to cost US$17 million. He refused to say who had paid for it, leading to speculation that the money came from public funds. Often, the King abandons his private jet but still travels abroad in luxury. In May 2012 he went to London to attend a lunch to mark the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Elizabeth II. The trip was estimated to cost US$794,500. He took with him his first wife Inkhosikati LaMbikiza. She wore to the lunch shoes trimmed with jewels that cost £995 (US$1,559). It would take seven-out-of-ten Swazis at least three years to earn the price of the shoes. The previous year he was in London with a party of 50 people for the wedding of Prince William and Kate Middlelton, staying at a US$1,000 per night hotel on a trip that was estimated to cost US$700,000 for the hire of a private jet to take the King and his party from Swaziland to the UK. The extravagant spending came just as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) criticised Swaziland for diverting money that should have been used on education and health to other spending. As a result of this spending the IMF withdrew its team that was advising the government on economic recovery from Swaziland. In 2012 Inkhosikati LaMotsa, the second of the King's wives, stayed at a Johannesburg hotel on a personal trip at a cost of US$60,000 a month. The King has at least 13 wives and they regularly travel the world on lavish shopping trips. Details are kept from the Swazi people, but it is estimated that the trips take place several times a year. In 2016 at least three of his wives went shopping in Orlando, Florida, with an entourage of more than 100, reportedly spending about US$1 million. The cost of this holiday was equivalent to the drought relief that the United States was then providing to the drought-stricken Kingdom. Reports of the trip prompted Lisa Peterson, the then US ambassador to Swaziland, to warn the Kingdom might not receive further food aid from her country because of the Swazi King's 'lavish spending' on holidays. News24 in South Africa reported Peterson saying the US had limited funds for drought relief. She said, 'When we hear of the lavish spending by the Swazi royal family - especially while a third of their citizens need food aid - it becomes difficult to encourage our government to make more emergency aid available. You can't expect international donors to give more money to the citizens of Swaziland than their own leaders give them.' |
| Posted by:Fred |