SUPPLEMENT
This year the Nation celebrated His Majesty King Mswati lll who has marked a major life milestone, turning 57 on his 39th year on the throne of the Kingdom of Eswatini.
The King was born Prince Makhosetive (king of the united nations) in Manzini in what was then the British Protectorate of Swaziland. His father is King Sobhuza II, descendant of a long unbroken Royal Dlamini lineage that traces beyond the 13th Century.
His Majesty was crowned as Mswati III, Ingwenyama and King of Swaziland, on 25 April 1986 at the age of 18, becoming the youngest ruling monarch in the world at that time.
April 2025 is also a tripple celebration marking His Majesty’s Birthday, His Majesty’s Coronation as well as National Flag Raising Day, marking the first time the national flag of the Kingdom was hoisted just before the Kingdom regained its national sovereignty.
In April, the Nation gathered in Nhlangano to celebrate their King’s birthday, acknowledging that His Majesty has earned the right to be celebrated.
As an executive Monarch, His Majesty directs the Prime Minister and his cabinet of ministers and thus takes responsibility for the nation’s progress. He is at the permanent centre of planning that responds to the nation’s challenges.
His Majesty is also in permanent consultation with the chiefs who represent him in the communities and are responsible for dispensing justice and human rights; ensuring public order and social stability in the countryside.
His Majesty works hard on discharging his leadership mandate as the symbol of the nation’s peace, unity and development progress. He holds government and all development agencies accountable for meeting their targets. He is accountable to the people through their elected representatives. For this, he reports annually to Parliament on the progress, challenges and aspirations of the nation.
King Mswati lll provides visionary leadership and attends to the fundamentals which helps national development structures to follow a clear roadmap. His leadership has transformed the Kingdom beyond recognition in almost all dimensions of development.
By all measures – the King is a successful monarch. The National Development Strategy (NDS) that set a vision to push the Kingdom to “…the top 10% of the medium human development group of countries founded on sustainable economic development, social justice and political stability”. The Poverty Reduction Strategy and Action Plan (PRSAP) projected that for the country to achieve this by 2022, it would require sustained 5% economic growth.
For almost half a century, this vision was rendered impossible by a series of multiple and sustained development challenges associated with HIV&AIDS, and post 2019, two disastrous crises in succession – Covid-19 which sparked national protests.
The nation has shaken of those bad memories and is moving ahead. Now the Minister of Finance projects that 2025 GDP growth will be 8.3%. This builds on a sterling 5% 2024 GDP growth. Figures for the past 5 years show that the country is now on a solid upward trajectory.
The optimism is shared by global investment rating agencies who are increasingly happy with the country’s progress. As of November 25, 2024, Moody’s Investors Service assigned Eswatini a global credit rating of B2 Stable. This is an upgrade from its previous rating of B3 Positive – a very strong positive projection of the country’s attractiveness as an investment destination.
There is no higher accolade to the King than evidence the budget estimates presented by the minister of finance in February which is fully financed, setting a new record. The budget deficit for financial year 2024/25 is projected at 3 percent of GDP, equal to E2.88 billion. 169. Mr. Speaker, we are well poised for entering a new era of economic growth. We have a solid Tinkhundla system, a wise and dedicated Head of State, a hardworking Prime Minister, a committed Cabinet, a Parliament that is focused and dedicated on improving the lives of EmaSwati, a firm base of GDP growth at 5 percent and a projected growth for 2025 of 8.3 percent. Let us take full advantage of this favourable position that we find ourselves in to take our economy to new heights. Let us all stand together to achieve these goals for the benefit of our children and future generations.
The King is conscious of the evolving nature of the nation’s demographics and public perceptions and expectations that he too must adapt to change. Since public disturbances in 2021, the King has demonstrated an appreciation of public opinion which has been seen in a visible transformation in his public interactions. During regular public engagements in the communities, the King makes sure to mingle with ordinary people and keep an ear open for their concerns. In many instances, these are personal; about poverty, joblessness, especially among the youth have appealed for help on a range of issues. The king has listened and noted their pleas, many of which have found solution. A young woman who lived with her mother in abject poverty in the Matsapha industrial dumpsite got a new house for her family… The King has kept a particular ear open for the indigent. The Deputy Prime Minister now regularly builds homes for the poor, especially the old.
For his 2025 Birthday, he visited the among others, the area of Hosea in the Shiselweni Region. Hosea which was among the areas stirred by political activists behind the 2021 national disturbances. Here the king launched various businesses and introduced development projects for the constituency leaving members of the community very happy: “Now that the King has visited Hosea, poverty will be a thing of the past”, exclaimed a member of the community who thanked their Member of Parliament (MP) Sifiso Mabuza for facilitating the visit.
PLACING WATER AT THE CENTRE OF DEVELOPMENT
Key to His Majesty’s vision for long-term national development is to ensure water security for the Nation.
All civilization is built around water. Water is life, and as populations grow, its importance and value increase. Water is essential for food production and for cooking. For drinking, for sanitation and for preservation of nature.
Recognizing that water is critical for all aspects of national development, His Majesty considered how the Kingdom’s four main rivers Lusutfu, Ngwavuma, Nkomazi and Mkhondvo could be captured and harnessed for national development.
A very important lesson came from the bi-national Komati Basin Water project in which South Africa partnered with Eswatini to build the 332 million M3 dam on the Nkomazi River. The dam is managed under the Komati River Basin Water Authority (KOBWA) that ensures that the water is shared 60-40, with 60% going back to South Africa and only 40% remaining for use by the domestic population. In Eswatini this water serves the town of Pigg’s Peak and the Komati Downstream Development Project (KDDP) as well as augment irrigation of the Tshaneni, Vuvulane and Mhlume system.
His Majesty created the Eswatini Water and Agriculture Development Enterprise (EWADE) with the mandate to create dams and irrigation infrastructure to stimulate rural economic development. EWADE’s first water infrastructure projects was the capture of the Mhlathuzane River, a tributary of the Lusutfu South-East of Siphofaneni to build the 155 million M3 Lubovane Dam. Though much smaller than Maguga, this dam has become the engine of economic growth, wealth creation and poverty eradication that is powering an amazing transformation of the dry Lubombo basin.
Under the Lower Usuthu Smallholder Project (LUSIP), the dam has turned Lubombo southern basin from what was a dustbowl poverty-stricken area into the Kingdom’s most prosperous community. From Siphofaneni through Ndzevane to Nsoko, the area has turned a prosperous green with crops. The earlier part of the LUSIP project was allocated largely to sugar cane production with those parts unsuitable for sugarcane used to grow food crops including maize, vegetables and fruits. Some parts of the LUSIP 1 project support livestock production in cattle, goats, pork as well as honey and other cottage industries.
Under LUSIP 2, irrigation has been deployed for mostly food crops. Land in the Ndzevane area especially has been put to grain cultivation to produce two crops per year of beans and maize. These grains are essential for the diet of the nation and underpin national food security. Projects under LUSIP already benefit almost 110 thousand people. These are shareholders of about 11,000 companies, employees and project dependants.
The jewel of the EWADE crown is currently under construction. The Mpakeni Dam is a 52-meter-high clay core rockfill embankment dam will accommodate approximately 120 million M3. Mpakeni will be augmented with water from the Mkhondvo River that will be conveyed by tunnel for about 70 km from North of the town of Nhlangano in Shiselweni.
Mpakeni water bring life to Lavumisa, a once commercial agriculture prosperous community that fell on hard times because of climate change which brought sustained episodes of drought. The dam will benefit about 30,000 hectares of land that is being prepared to come under irrigation in 2028.
The EWADE project is on track to meet one of the Kingdom’s most elusive development goals – a harvest of 140,000 M3 of maize which is required for the country’s annual food security.
THE KING HAS A PASSION FOR COMMUNICATIONS
Visitors to the Kingdom acclaim the quality of its roads. Indeed, the first fundamental required by development is quality transport infrastructure. This was arguably the first major initiative His Majesty took on becoming King. The priority was to develop a major carriageway between the principal border at Ngwenya to link the capital city, Mbabane and the commercial city, Manzini.
This road has gone on to connect to the international airport at Sikhuphe and continues to link with Mozambique, the country’s gateway to the sea. A network of roads from all four administrative regions of the Kingdom now connect to the arterial MR3 that links the Kingdom with its biggest economic neighbour, South Africa’s Gauteng region in the West, and its key sea transport corridor nation of Maputo in Southern Mozambique. Quality paved roads today criss-cross the country ensuring connectivity and improved quality of life of citizens.
Until 2013, the Kingdom was served by the Matsapha Airport which is conveniently located 6 km from the commercial city of Manzini and 30 from the administrative capital, Mbabane. On a clear day, planes approaching the airport from the Johannesburg International Airport 350km west hopped over the hills at Nqabaneni then descend sharply before steering northwards to find the runway immediately below on the pineapple fields. This was an un-nerving experience even on a sunny day. But the Eswatini highlands are not usually sunny. Summer afternoons are rainy, and the hills regularly enveloped in dense fog, making landing at Matsapha an uncomfortable experience for passengers.
Various efforts to extend the Matsapha Airport runway had reached the limit and the airport could not land jets bigger than the Fokker 100 that Royal Swazi operated.
At the turn of the millennium His Majesty had trained his focus on building an international airport with a runway big and strong enough to land a loaded Ilyushin. The airport project which began soon after 2000 was finally completed and opened in 2013, and 10 years later, Royal Swazi Air was revived under the new name Eswatini National Airline.
The airline, now a year old, operates a regional network linking the Kingdom to the key cities of Cape Town, Durban and a daily flight to Johannesburg. The airline also travels to Zimbabwe and is expected to expand soon to reach Mozambique, Zambia and Kenya.
The Kingdom is also actively working to build a direct railway link to the economic hub of Gauteng by developing a highspeed freight service to transport minerals and other rough cargo from South Africa to the Richardsbay Habour. The line that will connect from Lothair, 30 kilometres from the Eswatini’s western border to Sidvokodvo, connecting with the Southern Rail Link. Preliminary stages of development of this infrastructure is ongoing. Civil works will require investment estimated at over E20 billion. When complete, this development in association with South Africa’s TRANSNET will relieve the Kingdom’s roads of damaging heavy truck traffic and road accidents and inject new revenue streams into the economy.
HE’S MAKING SURE EVERYONE HAS ACCESS TO RIGHT TO LUFE
Eswatini development would be far ahead, were it not been for the debilitating drawbacks of health crises. The first challenge that faced His Majesty was the HIV & AIDS pandemic which started in the mid-80s. The most virulent strain of the virus centred in Southern Africa, holding the countries surrounding the region’s economic hub of South Africa in a deadly grip.
By the late 90s, HIV infections had transformed to full-blown AIDS. Hospital wards were filled with people facing a disease without a cure. The latest World Health Organization data published in 2020 shows HIV/AIDS deaths in Eswatini had declined to 20.79% of total deaths. HIV exacerbated the impact of other killer diseases. TB surged as a concurrent calamity; complicating into various levels of dug resistance. TB accounts for nearly one-third of all AIDS-related deaths, making it the leading cause of mortality in people living with HIV though the TB Treatment Success Rate currently stands at 84 percent.
, illustrating an improvement of about 4 percentage points from the figure last reported. Cancers also spiralled and continue as the leading cause of death. It was a calamity that almost decimated the Kingdom and imposed a dark pall over development and accelerated poverty.
His Majesty stood up and assumed global leadership of a campaign to mobilize international partnerships in a drive to focus world attention on the need for research into new drugs to reverse the pandemic and funding for cost-effective access to treatment for developing countries. The King piloted such initiatives as the Royal Initiative to Combat AIDS (RICA) and harnessed the energy of international celebrities and emotional leaders in the entertainment industry to promote awareness of the disaster response.
At the domestic level, the King committed national resources to confront the virus and invested heavily in antiretroviral treatment specifically to ravelled the world to mobilize partnerships and funding for combatting the disaster. His government evolved the strategies and made the hard decisions to commit resources to acquire treatment. When treatment was at the trial stage, government secured Antiretroviral (ARVs), targeting treatment of pregnant women to prevent children being born with the virus. This step ensured the regeneration of the nation.
As the ARV treatment protocols improved, people were enrolled on treatment, beginning with those at the lowest CD count. By 2016, government at huge cost, took the bold decision to put everyone that tested positive on ARVs. In a country where one in 3 people were HIV+, this decision saved the nation and rescued 30% of the population from disaster.
It is a decision that rightly, earned the King global accolades. Today Eswatini is a shining example for the world, becoming the first country to reach UN targets for the treatment of HIV by placing 95% of people who test HIV on ART, providing treatment for 95% of HIV+ people and 95% people on ART achieve viral suppression.
The strains of almost 40 years of the HIV crisis has left other parts of the health system in tatters. Scant resources to other health problems service delivery challenges are perennial.
His Majesty has invested heavily on social infrastructure and health facilities to meet the range of public needs. Eswatini spends 8% of GDP on health. New and improved clinics make sure that everyone in the population is within 5 km of a health facility of varying degrees of sophistication and specialization.
In a population carrying a significant ongoing burden, the health delivery systems are creaking. Access to drugs and adequacy of health personnel and effective administration of medicines and drugs are headaches that inspire regular newspaper headlines. The revamping the Mbabane Government Hospital has raised the facility to offer specialist treatment as the principal national referral hospital.
Jabu, very well done. I enjoyed reading this piece of history. I do hope, more to come!