Durban - Swaziland’s well-watered and fertile agricultural lands once exported food to the rest of Africa.
This week a new survey found that 20 years of food security continued in 2014 and would worsen because of a new rash of unemployment.
The country’s feudal system consigns 70 percent of the population to the status of landless peasantry.
Because of last summer’s good weather for crops, many subsistence farmers were able to provide basic nutrition for their families. But two out of three Swazis remained in chronic poverty, and upheavals in the industrial and mining sectors caused the first thousands of potentially tens of thousands of lay-offs this week.
Each worker supports five to 10 immediate and extended family members.
“The number of Swazis requiring food assistance will rise significantly in 2015 regardless of the crop production obtained by the subsistence farmers. Some farmers will squeak by and not require food assistance, but the unemployed workers who in most instances support kin in rural areas will definitely need aid,” Andrew Dhlamini, a social welfare officer in Manzini, said.
“Government has sought to expand the industrial part of the economy to modernise the country and provide wage jobs. The extent of the downturn in manufacturing and mining this year is something that has never been seen before,” said Catherine Magongo, an investment adviser for a Mbabane bank.
Six percent of the population, or about 68 000 people, require immediate food assistance according to a survey released by the deputy prime minister’s office.
The Vulnerability Assessment Committee found that an additional 223 249 people, or 22 percent of the nation’s population of 1.1 million people, need either food or monetary interventions from relatives, government or donor agencies.
This week, the country’s largest textile factory, Tex Ray, dismissed almost its entire workforce. More textile factories are expected to do the same in the weeks ahead as their final orders from the US are processed. Having failed for five consecutive years to conform labour and security laws to commitments agreed upon by King Mswati as a signatory to various international accords, Swaziland was delisted in May as a nation eligible for US trade benefits under the African Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa). As a result Swaziland’s exports to the US will lose their tax-free status on December 31.
“All our clients told us to ship our last orders by November 15 so they arrive before the end of the year,” said Jackie Xu, human resources manager at Tex Ray.
About 17 000 jobs are expected to be lost in the textile industry, which was built by Asian investors when Agoa was introduced in 2001, according to the Swaziland Chamber of Commerce.
Swaziland’s government remains functioning by the grace of the Southern African Custom’s Union.
Government officials, who are all selected by Mswati, are handsomely rewarded. The size and value of King Mswati’s fleet of bombproof luxury vehicles is not publicised.
Daily News Foreign Service