Swaziland
Swazi King spends two health budgets on airplane

afrol News, 7 July - Swaziland's Mwsati III, Africa's last absolute king, has ordered a jet plane costing US$ 45 million. This equals two annual health budgets of the poverty ridden country, where one third of the population is HIV infected.

The daily 'Independent Times of Swaziland' yesterday reported about the new dispositions of King Mswati. The King's jet plane is to be paid by government funds, and two million dollars have already been handed out as down payment to the Canadian airplane producer Bombardier Inc. 

The fashionable Canadian jet plane will be used only by the Royal Palace, as the King needed to arrive representatively when on official visits abroad. The Royal Palace had confirmed this, the Swazi newspaper reported. 

The 'Independent Times of Swaziland' also had established that the King's purchase of the plane using state funds had not been presented to Parliament. The US$ 45 million expenditure thus had not been politically approved. 

Meanwhile, Swaziland is experiencing two emergencies at one time, both connected with lack of government funds. Following Botswana, Swaziland is the world's country with the highest prevalence of HIV and AIDS. Other than Botswana, however, no serious policy exists to meet the pandemic. Mswati III's measure against the spread of HIV is a five-year's sex ban for young Swazi women. 

Swaziland currently also is one of the six countries of Southern Africa where millions of people are threatened with starvation over the next nine months. The World Food Programme (WFP) is currently asking donors to raise the large amount of US$ 507 million to fund an emergency operation in the drought affected region. Mswati's jet plane purchase will not be seen as timely by donors. 

In December 2000, King Mswati also launched the so-called Millennium Project, including a multi-million dollar international airport outside the tiny capital, Mbabane. The current Matsapha International Airport is seen as "inadequate" because it cannot handle trans-Atlantic or inter-continental flights. Swaziland has a little more than 1 million inhabitants. 

Sources: Based on Swazi press and afrol archives

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