NUMSA Opposed to South Africa’s Non-Transparent Swaziland Loan

The National Union of Metalworkers of South Africa (NUMSA) voiced fierce opposition to government’s decision to bail out the authoritarian and illegitimate Swaziland rule of King Mswati III. On 3 August, South African Finance Minister Pravin Gordhan announced a R2.4 billion (US$354 million, €259 million) loan to the repressive regime to offset revenue shortfalls from the Southern African Customs Union (SACU).

“This decision by the South African government to give King Mswati’s regime a financial bail-out is a direct assault on our solidarity efforts to free and liberate the people of Swaziland from this hyena’s tyranny,” said NUMSA in a statement, making direct reference to Mozambique’s 1987 Nkomati Accord with South Africa’s apartheid regime.

Then, African National Congress (ANC) President Oliver Tambo said “our brothers and sisters in Mozambique have hugged and kissed the most hated hyena in the world.”

The South African loan to Mswati’s absolute monarchy comes when all political parties have been banned, trade unionists are jailed, and a bureaucracy surrounding Mswati that has proven corrupt and ineffectual in tending to the needs of the impoverished country of 1.2 million. The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) and the South African Communist Party also oppose the loan.

The first instalment of South Africa’s loan is to be paid out late this month, the second in October and the final in February 2012. South Africa is to recoup payment over five years through Swaziland’s share of SACU revenue sharing.

Although there are some conditional requirements to the loan, none are readily transparent. Vague “confidence-building measures” by the Swazi regime, adherence to fiscal and technical reforms by the IMF (reforms that failed in past loans), and capacity-building support by the South African government are listed as those conditions.

COSATU was point-blank in its assessment of South Africa’s loan: “So long as there are no strict conditions to compel the regime to concede democratic reforms and to share the country’s wealth among the people, the loan will simply be used to perpetuate the status quo. Mswati’s lavish lifestyle and the royal family’s extravagance, impunity and lack of accountability will continue unabated, while the conditions of misery for the majority get even worse.”

NUMSA said the loan essentially squanders the “hard-earned money generated through taxes” of South Africans while continuing Mswati’s “order to unleash state terror and starve the people of Swaziland.”