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10 September, 2011The well coordinated second annual global week of action for democracy and rights in Swaziland, amongst other things, raised concerns on the bailout offered by South Africa and other planned loans with neoliberal conditionalities that will enslave the Swazi people to debt repayments and block the pursuit of a developmental agenda in the future.
SWAZILAND: Actions from September 5th to 9th were held in several countries organised by labour and civil society expressing solidarity during the week. Their actions raised awareness of the plight of Swazi people that have suffered under years of political oppression with curbed rights, exacerbated by the increasingly desperate economic situation in the country.
In Swaziland, one of the world's last remaining absolute monarchies, protests this week have been a resounding success with thousands of Swazi people taking to the streets in urban and rural centres throughout the small African nation.
Dispersing people to prevent protests forming in urban centres across Swaziland during the global week of action, proved more challenging for police than in the past. It seems that the Swazi people have overcome their fears of state reprisal, openly talking about democracy and coming out in great numbers to call for change.
The Swazi government's reaction to the actions were not cowed by rising dissent in Swaziland or increasing condemnation by civil society in the international community. Police brutality has been rampant throughout the week, with reports of beatings as well as the use of tear gas and rubber bullets and live ammunition, resulting in many injuries.
At least two South African trade unionists that had come to offer solidarity were deported, the Deputy President of the Congress of South African Trade Union (COSATU), Zingiswa Losi, and COSATU Deputy International Secretary, Zanele Matebula. Losi was addressing a crowd in Siteki and was forcibly removed by police, detained and deported, whilst peaceful protestors at the action were subjected to beatings, tear gas and rubber bullets.
The global week of action was widely supported by labour in South Africa. Fuelling the support is the controversial South African loan to Swaziland of R2.4 billion (about E240 million) to bail out the Swazi government, which COSATU Secretary General, Zwelinzima Vavi, has called a mistake.
Whilst South Africa insists that the loan is meant to enable Swaziland to keep afloat and provide essential services such as health care and schooling, Swazi Finance Minister is reported to have said that R1 billion will be used to continue building a second international airport, an unnecessary vanity project with great saga and intrigue regarding corrupt tender deals. According to the Finance Minister only about R500 million would go to addressing social needs. There are also allegations that King Mswati will receive a huge commission for brokering the deal.
The loan has been met with much criticism. Some critics say that South Africa is acting in its own self interest as the economic collapse of Swaziland will result in a flood of refugees as experienced with Zimbabwe. Others have said that South Africa should be addressing its social needs and is not in a position to prioritise such a loan.
The South African Minister of Finance insists that the loan will be paid back, as instalments will be deducted from Southern African Customs Union (SACU) revenue paid quarterly by the South African Reserve Bank to the Swazi government. Yet at the heart of the crisis in Swaziland is the drastic reduction in SACU revenue, in the past the Swazi government's main source of income, which reduced by 60% last year and is expected to drop even more in the years to come. No doubt repayment of the loan will add further pressure to the economic situation in the long term.
The Swazi government has been out, hat in hand, to beg for loans which democracy campaigners are opposed to insisting that there should be no bailout until the Swazi government commits to political reform. Swaziland's economic woes are rooted in a political crisis. Problems include chronic instability as a result of the illegitimacy of the ruling regime, poor political governance, the absence of any planning or accountability, poor economic monitoring and management and the institutionalisation of a cancerous corruption and parasitism. Without a radical rethink of priorities, and changes in how the economy is managed, social service delivery, desperately needed by the poor majority, will be virtually non-existent in the coming years.
Loans have been drafted by the World Bank and the African Development Bank that will prop up the country but the International Monetary Fund has been unable to provide the green light for these loans as insufficient progress has been made to their largely neoliberal reform requirements. Included in policy prescriptions is a requirement to drastically reduce public sector employment as the International Monetary Fund says that Swaziland cannot afford the wage bill and pension pay outs, requiring 7000 civil servant jobs to be shed and those remaining to take a pay cut. This has been met with much resistance from labour as it would see workers bearing the brunt of the country's economic woes.
The International Monetary Fund reports that Swaziland has one of the largest in wage bills in Sub Saharan Africa but fails to rationalise this. As a small, poor country with the highest HIV prevalence in the world and a large number of orphaned and vulnerable children, one would expect that the wage bill would be disproportionately larger than that of a larger, even slightly better of country in the region. Public sector employment is vital to the survival of the Swazi people, in a country that has a high income dependency ratio and unemployment rate of over 40 percent.
The International Monetary Fund and other financial institutions fail to recognise that Swaziland is experiencing a revenue crisis not a spending one, despite the insatiable appetite of the Swazi royal elite for a lavish lifestyle and the government's penchant for irresponsible vanity projects, which these institutions seem prepared to overlook anyway. The civil servants wage bill is proving to be a soft target for calls on the Swaziland government to reduce spending.
Civil servants are under attack. The International Monetary Fund call for reduction in the wage bill, through proposed salary cuts and forced early retirements, is mirrored as a key component of a pending US$80 million African Development Bank loan for budgetary support. The World Bank's economist Jean van Houtt, before his visit to Swaziland in May 2011 targeted the wage bill saying that the government is now in a position where it will have to take "unilateral action" to force salary cuts.
Van Houtt is widely quoted as saying "We have said (to the Swazi government) if you need a little time to get your house in order you can re-peg at a different level", advice which is irresponsible and short sighted. Swaziland's currency, the lilangeni, is pegged at one-to-one with the South African rand. Devaluing the currency will erode real wages and further impoverish the Swazi people, more than 70% of which live on less than two dollars a day. Swaziland is heavily dependent on imported goods and devaluation of the currency will swiftly have a hyperinflationary effect with rising food and fuel costs. One of the conditions of the South African loan is that the Swazi currency remains pegged to the rand.
In the meantime, the World Bank has already approved a US$26.9 million loan in January 2011 to shore up local government, run under the undemocratic and repressive Tinkhundla. The dismantling of the Tinhundla system is a key campaign demand, promoted in this week's actions. In March 2011, the World Bank approved another, more palatable loan of US$20 million for the health sector, HIV/AIDS and TB, bolstered by an additional loan of US$19 million from the EU Commission.
Peddling neoliberalism in the bailouts for the feudalistic Swazi regime will stifle a much needed developmental agenda in Swaziland. International institutions and agencies and the South African government are perpetuating poor governance by offering loans to keep the country afloat in the short term with no long term plans in place to address the countries revenue crisis. Long term proposals promote privatisation that will sell off revenue generating state assets, further impoverishing the nation. The bailouts will shackle future generations of the working class and the poor in Swaziland to chronic indebtedness and disable the future democratic government from meeting the developmental needs of the Swazi people.