(From Swazi Media Commentary 21 September 2008 www.swazimedia.blogspot.com)
Only days after Swaziland spent an estimated 10 million US dollars (E70 million) on a celebration to mark King Mswati III’s 40th birthday and Swaziland’s 40th anniversary of independence comes news that last near close to 70 percent of the population received international food aid last year. Official statistics from the World Food Programme (WFP) show that close to 650,000 people received aid. The food went to nearly every rural area in Swaziland. The total population of Swaziland is about 1 million people and about 70 per cent live in rural areas. The statistics suggest that just about every person in the rural areas would have received some food aid The Swazi News reported yesterday (20 September 2008) that the WFP predicted that 200,000 people will need food aid in the coming year. These figures should be treated with extreme caution. Last year the estimate was 345,000 but the real figure was 650,000. Part of the problem has been a drought that has been affecting southern Africa. But this is not the full story. The WFP recognises that there are measures Swaziland can take (but isn’t) to help itself. The WFP wants Swaziland to diversify its crops to include those that can grow in a drought, such as cassava, sorghum and pigeon peas. It also wants farmers to be helped with supplies and farm implements to help them grow crops. The WFP doesn’t put a figure on the cost of this, but you don’t need to be a rocket scientist to see that the 10 million dollars wasted on the King’s birthday bash could go a long way to solving the crisis. There is no reaction from the Swazi government to this report so far, but we shouldn’t be too optimistic. The usual response from Prime Minister Themba Dlamini to the drought crisis is to ask people to pray for rain. Also, as I reported in June 2008 Minister of Agriculture and Cooperatives Mtiti Fakudze is so out of touch that he refused to rule out the possibility that the drought was caused by a mysterious aircraft firing into the clouds. Link http://swazimedia.blogspot.com/2008/09/swaziland-hunger-hits-crisis-point.html --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "SA Swaziland Solidarity EOM Forum" group. Visit the group site at http://groups-beta.google.com/group/sa-swaziland-solidarity-eom-forum for more options, pages and files. To post to the group, send email to [email protected] or reply to this message. To unsubscribe, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
