COMMENT - Swaziland = Greece
The Swazis need to get off the neoliberal economic crazy train, and reinstate the Southern Africa Customs Union, which provided the state with 60% of it's revenues before the creation of the 'free trade zone'. Economics isn't that difficult.
Also read:
Chikane hopes Free Trade Area will break barriers (linked to other articles on the neoliberal 'free trade' scam pulled on Swaziland). I wonder how much the 'pro democracy campaigners' get paid by foreign governments.
Swazi loan 'like giving money to a drunk wife-beater'
LOUISE REDVERS JOHANNESBURG, SOUTH AFRICA - Jul 07 2011 15:14
Swazi pro-democracy campaigners on Thursday urged South Africa not to give their country financial assistance without imposing conditions aimed at steering the troubled kingdom towards negotiations for a transitional government. One campaigner likened offering a financial bailout to the beleaguered kingdom to giving money to a drunken wife-beater.
A delegation of union leaders and activists, as well as politicians from two banned political parties, travelled to South Africa to personally lobby against the handout, which is believed to be in the region of R1.2-billion.
After addressing reporters in Johannesburg they were due to meet members of the South African Communist Party and other government officials, and visit a number of Western embassies.
Mario Masuku, the leader of the People's United Democratic Movement (Pudemo), said: "We need a commitment from our head of state and government, that they are prepared to work towards a democratic process in Swaziland."
Demands
"We want all political parties unbanned and all political prisoners released," said Masuku. "We want the scrapping of the 2008 Suppression of Terrorism Act; and we want to work towards setting up a transitional government moving in the long term, towards a new constitution and, eventually, free elections."
"We appreciate this is a long-term goal and it will not happen overnight, but we need a commitment to this process," she added.
On the question of whether they would retain a constitutional monarchy or do away with the throne altogether, Masuku said that would be for the people of Swaziland to decide.
Swaziland has approached South Africa, cap in hand, after a 60% drop in its revenues from the regional customs union (Sacu) plunged it into a financial crisis that has seen wages go unpaid and public services grind to a halt.
CONTINUES BELOW
Attempts to access funding from the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the African Development Bank (AfDB) stalled after Swaziland failed to carry out the fiscal reforms specified in the institutions' lending conditions.
SA comes clean
Two weeks ago, South Africa's ministry of international relations and cooperation finally confirmed -- after much speculation -- that Swaziland had asked it for financial assistance. On Wednesday, minister Maite Nkoana-Mashabane told reporters this was still being considered.
Although she stopped short of revealing any conditions a loan might have, the minister said: "The South African government has urged all relevant parties in the kingdom to begin a political dialogue with a view to speedily and peacefully resolving all the challenges facing the country."
She added: "The government will also have to improve its governance and fiscal management system. A strengthened foreign direct investment portfolio would also help to mitigate the financial crisis."
Veteran democracy campaigner Musa Hlophe, who heads the Swaziland Coalition for Concerned Civil Organisations (SCCCO), said poor financial management and economic policy were as much to blame for Swaziland's downfall as its non-democratic system of governance, where the king has absolute power.
"If Swaziland were a company it would have been bankrupt by now, because of how it has been managed," he said.
Quid pro quo
Offering a financial bailout to Swaziland "is like giving money to a drunken wife-beater", said Hlophe, and he urged South Africans who had been helped by the Swazi people during the days of apartheid to use this opportunity to bring regime change to his country.
This week's delegation to South Africa comes after months of unrest in Swaziland, where labour unions and teachers have been calling for the prime minister to resign, and striking over plans to cut the wages of civil servant.
On April 12, the anniversary of a 1973 decree banning political parties in Swaziland, the Swazi police came under fire for heavy-handed tactics and their use of tear gas and water cannons to put down anti-government demonstrations, during which several journalists were arrested.
Hlophe said the SCCCO was calling for peaceful reform and transition but warned that there was a risk that the situation could get worse should the government continued to refuse to engage.
He also added that while Swaziland had diplomatic ties with Taiwan, one of its key sources of foreign direct investment, through textile factories, he had heard that the government was considering approaching China to secure financial backing.
"If South Africa does not give Swaziland this bailout then it may seek solace elsewhere, and that could mean turning to China. It is a wild card but it is possible."
Swaziland is Africa's last absolute monarchy, ruled over by King Mswati III, who has 13 wives and maintains luxurious lifestyle.
Meanwhile, two-thirds of his subjects live in poverty, 40% are unemployed and one in four are HIV-positive, the highest rate in the world.
Labels: NEOLIBERALISM, SACU, SWAZILAND
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COMMENT - The IMF/World Bank still up to their old tricks. Here they want Malawi to devalue it's currency. They made the same demand from Swaziland,
after their own privatisation abolished the Southern African Customs Union (SACU), from which the Swaziland government received the majority of it's revenues.
Bingu rejects IMF devaluation call, speaks on fuel crisis
By Nyasa Times
Published: June 24, 2011
Malawians who listened to the national address by President Bingu wa Mutharika Friday evening said he was “hardly convincing” as he did not give plausible assurance to solve the economic turmoil facing the country.
Mutharika, who has been summoned to parliament to explain the chronic fuel crisis, addressed the nation through state controlled Malawi Broadcasting Corporation (MBC) when he accused the donor community for causing the perennial fuel shortage by directing that the business of importing fuel should be left in the hands of private traders.
Mutharika: No devaluation
He said private traders refused to keep fuel reserves because he said it was expensive, hence creating the current fuel crisis.
Mutharika said the problems of fuel queues would be a thing of the past as government is to set up a National Oil Company which would look at ways of establishing strategic fuel reserve.
He said the fuel crisis will be abated in the coming days because supplies are now coming as government will take the responsibility of importing fuel.
“We have already started filling tankers at Dar es Salam which will be arriving in the country on Monday or Tuesday,” he said.
“We have over 300, 000 vehicles on the roads of Malawi; statistics are showing that we are purchasing about 3000 cars a month and all these are running on fuel not water. That aside, there are great construction works going on in the country, whose machinery also needs fuel to operate,” said Mutharika.
He said the opposition should provide solutions to solve the crisis other than taking to the streets for demonstrations.
“We are spending US$ 30 million every month on fuel alone, which shows on how serious we are on fuel. So if the opposition political parties have better ideas than ours, let them come forward instead of making baseless noise in the streets,” President Mutharika said.
Economists say billions of kwacha are being lost each day Malawian fuel pumps are dry as production of goods is affected and provision of service is also hampered as people spend lots of man-hours queuing for fuel.
President Mutharika, an economist, also commented on the call by International Monetary Fund (IMF) to devalue the local currency –Kwacha – claiming it was overvalued.
“The International Monetary Fund (IMF) told us that we should not be keeping our moneys in the Reserve Bank but instead it they should be given to the commercial banks. Last year all our money from tobacco was sent to the commercial banks which in turn gave it to traders,” said Mutharika, who opposed the devaluation saying it will fuel inflation and wouldn’t solve the country’s foreign exchange shortage.
“What these traders do is that when they see that they have bought enough United States Dollars, they call for the IMF to push for the devaluation of the kwacha so that they sell their money and make more profits,” he said.
Mutharika claimed traders are proposing for the Kwacha to be devalued to K180 equivalent to $1 when they bought it at K140.
“I have been asking the IMF to tell me how I am going to protect my people and they have just been saying that they will find measures. Unless the IMF tells me how I will protect my people, I will not devalue the Kwacha,” he stressed.
Mutharika also defended the new financial plan, on ‘zero deficit’ budget and defended the taxes on the poor, saying “there is no country on earth without taxes. It is the taxes which we use to run the country but we cannot put up measures to oppress Malawians.”
He claimed that some donors , which he did not name, have assured him that they will continue supporting Malawi and they are happy with the step the country has taken to fund its recurrent budget, boasting : “I know what I am doing and trust me, you will all be glad with what I am doing.” –(Reporting by Green Muheya, Nyasa Times)
Labels: FREE TRADE AREA, IMF, NEOLIBERALISM, SACU
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SACU plans to revamp economies
By Joan Chirwa
Wednesday May 21, 2008 [04:00]
SOUTHERN African Customs Union (SACU) governments are currently planning on
how to prevent a total collapse of their economies once Economic Partnership Agreements (EPAs) are concluded this December. According to the New Partnership for Africa's Development (NEPAD) weekly news, the fate of the world's oldest customs union, the SACU, is hanging in the balance as a result of the EPAs that most member countries have signed with the European Union (EU).
SACU has been a customs union since 1910, and the governments are now trying to figure out how to prevent paralysis or even total collapse of their economies as a result of the EPAs.
"But they are finding themselves divided. Some in the SACU want a retreat from the liberalisation agreements they have agreed to while others want to move ahead and deepen the integration with the EU, for fear of losing out on EU aid and market access," NEPAD stated. "From various reports, within the SACU, governments are now deeply divided about how to proceed in the EPA talks with Europe."
SACU countries note that as a result of differences between the liberalisation timetable of the Trade, Development and Cooperation Agreement (TDCA) and the EPA, the differentiated tariff structures would pose a major challenge for them to maintain the common customs union - SACU.
The EU has responded that they will not renegotiate the TDCA and the only way the terms could be changed was in the context of a full EPA. This would mean the inclusion of new issues such as services, investment, competition and procurement, as well as the most favoured nation (MFN) clause.
Labels: BORDERS, EPAs, SACU, TDCA
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