Swaziland has asked neighbouring South Africa for an emergency bailout to patch over a national cash crunch that has sparked rare political unrest against King Mswati III, Africa’s last absolute monarch.
Swazi dissident groups have suggested Mswati, who has at least a dozen wives and an estimated personal fortune of $200-million, is looking for a R10-billion loan from Pretoria.
However, Deputy Finance Minister Nhlanhla Nene told Reuters this was probably too high.
“I’m not sure where the R10-billion figure comes from and I don’t foresee assistance amounting to that much,” he said. “It is too early to put a figure to it until such time as the review and the assessment of Swaziland’s problems are done.”
The sums of money are a drop in the ocean for South Africa, far and away the continent’s biggest economy, but, in a curiously African echo of the euro zone debt crisis, Pretoria fears it may be simply the first of a series of bailouts for Swaziland.
Like the International Monetary Fund (IMF), it will also balk at lending anything to the landlocked nation of 1.4-million people until its government takes the carving knife to what is Africa’s most bloated civil service.
The IMF said last month the tiny southern African country was near financial collapse, with a budget deficit of 14.3% percent of GDP — similar to Greece — and an economy stuck in the doldrums. Read all…
