Members of the security
personnel of Swaziland’s absolute King have been fined 29 cattle after pictures
of his multi-million dollar private jet appeared on social media.
Photographs of the wake of
the vigil of King Mswati III’s wife Inkhosikati Senteni Masango who committed
suicide in April 2018 were also published online.
The City
Press in
South Africa reported (10 June 2018) the security guards have also
been ordered to deposit their cellphones in a container when arriving at work
so that they do not take pictures. Another punishment was a new order that they
may not sit down at all during their shifts, which can last for longer than
eight hours.
The royal family is guarded
by officers from His Majesty’s Correctional Services, Umbutfo Swaziland Defence
Force and the eSwatini Royal Police.
King Mswati III the absolute ruler of impoverished
Swaziland / Eswatini took delivery of his
second private jet, an A340-300
Airbus, in
April 2018 amid secrecy about the true cost of its purchase.
It has been described
by CNN as ‘one of the
world’s largest personal aircraft’.
It has been widely reported
within Swaziland and elsewhere that the 17-year-old plane cost US$13.2
million to purchase from China
Airlines in Taiwan. The A340 Airbus
is a long-range wide-bodied passenger plane. Usually, it seats 375 passengers
and has a range of 12,400 to 16,700 km (7,700 to 10,400 miles). Following the
purchase, the Airbus was completely refurbished. With the upgrades it could now be worth as much as US$30
million, but it has not been revealed how much the upgrades cost or
where the work was carried out.
A special hangar for the plane is to be built at King
Mswati III International Airport at a cost of E200 million
(US$16.6 million), to house the Airbus and the King’s other plane, a smaller modified
McDonnel Douglas DC-9-87, also known as an MD-87. That plane cost US$9.5
million in 2012.
King Mswati has a global reputation for living a lavish
lifestyle with fleets of top-of-the-range BMW and Mercedes cars and
a Rolls Royce. The King has 13 palaces and he, his family, and their entourage
take expensive
international trips.
Meanwhile, seven in ten of the King’s 1.1 million subjects live in abject
poverty on incomes of less than the equivalent of US$2 per day.
At his 50th birthday party on 19 April 2018
King Mswati wore a watch
worth US$1.6 million and a suit weighing
6 kg studded with diamonds.
On 4 June 2018 at a ceremony that lasted six hours he received
birthday gifts from his subjects. They included cheques worth at least E15
million (US$1.2 million) along with dining
room and lounge
furniture made of gold.
Although the King posed for photographs with his
diamond-studded suit and furniture of gold, he is more sensitive about the
interior of his plane being photographed. He has also banned the media from
showing him in his cars including a Maybach
limousine that according to CNN
cost US$500,000.
One of the photographs reportedly of the interior of
King Mswati’s private A340 Airbus that appeared on the Internet
See
also
KING
EATS OFF GOLD, CHILDREN STAVING
CENSORSHIP
AND THE SWAZI MEDIA
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