By Zweli Martin Dlamini

King Mswati’s ongoing extravagant spending on international trips amid social challenges including the life threatening shortage of drugs crisis in public hospitals could be equated to ‘kubhasha inhlanyelo’, a very unique but relevant phrase in our eSwatini culture.

‘Kubhasha inhlanyelo’ is an agricultural phrase in our culture meaning “consuming the seeds after harvesting, when you should be preserving those best seeds for future cultivation”.

I grew-up in a polygamous family and it terms of our Family Law, it was a punishable offense to consume ‘inhlanyelo’ because by doing so, that “would mean we will not be able to harvest in the future and the whole family will starve”.

Such experience taught me to understand that even if you can have money, you must never be addicted to extravagant spending more than your earnings, in financial terms, “inhlanyelo could be equated to savings”.

Now, in eSwatini we have King Mswati who, despite the ongoing changes in the world politics with United States(US) President Donald Trump halting donor funding, continues to consume ‘inhlanyelo’ grabbing almost everything from public coffers to enjoy with his royal family while neglecting the ordinary citizens dying in public hospitals amid shortage of drugs.

In siSwati, there’s a unique word that was regularly used in the ancient days to describe the reckless consumer of “inhlanyelo”, that person was referred to as “Liculu-culu” with no regard or plan for the future.

In most instances “Liculu-culu” would be an unmarried man with no children, that man would consume everything because afterall, he doesn’t have a reason to think about the future.

But King Mswati is behaving like ‘Liculu-culu’ who consume everything today, he doesn’t care about tomorrow or the furure of this country because he might not be there.

Whenever the King takes an international trip, payments for Government suppliers would be halted within the Treasury Department to ensure that, Mswati “has enough millions to spend with his family, friends, including girlfriends and boyfriends for sexual enjoyment of his loyalists”.

Mswati is in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates(UAE) attending the World Governments Forum, he is spending over R250million with his delegation in complete disregard of the current socio-economic situation in the country.

The halting of payments for Government suppliers means, workers employed by these companies contracted by Government will not receive their salaries and, the cash flow in the country will be affected by a Government decision to prioritize one man.

It is worth-mentioning that,this country does not have any future under the leadership of King Mswati, those who still hope or believe things will one day be better, must keep on dreaming.

As a descendent of the royal family, I sometimes ask myself what’s the significance of the institution of the Monarchy particularly, if it prioritizes the extravagance of a few while a emaSwati suffer with others dying in public hospitals because they can’t afford to buy medication for themselves.

We have enough resources in this country that could be used to improve the lives of all emaSwati, I don’t know where this culture of greediness within the royal family originated because it’s not in our eSwatini culture to neglect other emaSwati.