A GLITZY new airport greets visitors to Swaziland, a nation of 1.3m people between South Africa and Mozambique. It is eerily empty. So are the 200 parking spots outside. The airport can take two jumbo jets at a time and process 300 passengers an hour. Actual peak-time arrivals are half that, all of them on Swaziland Airlink’s three daily flights from Johannesburg. No other airline has signed up since March last year, when King Mswathi III cut the ribbon and named the airport after himself.
Building a white elephant or two is normal for autocracies. Swaziland, however, is going for a herd. Construction has started on a sprawling convention centre, paired with a luxury 500-room hotel. Along with the airport, they are part of the king’s Millennium Project, a plan for turning Swaziland into “a first-world nation” by 2022. Next on the list are a theme park, a trade centre, a sporting complex and an amusement park.
The country’s scarce funds could surely be better spent. Swaziland has the world’s highest HIV rate; six in ten of its people live in poverty. On August 29th dozens of young women crammed in the back of a lorry died when it collided with another...Continue reading
Source: Middle East and Africa http://ift.tt/1FIdmJm
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