Financial impasse keeps new Swazi/Maputo border closed

James Hall
MBABANE - Swaziland's parliament is withholding R250 000
to open and operate a new
R1,5 million border post facility at Mhlumeni, which will be the
country's second border crossing with Mozambique, on the recommendation of finance minister Majozi Sithole.
Sithole said Mozambique has not lived up to an agreement to rehabilitate its side of the border post, and improve the road to Maputo. Freight haulage firms were looking forward to an alternate and in some cases more expeditious route for Swazi exports to the port of Maputo.
Mhlumeni was closed for security reasons during the Mozambique civil war and post-war lawlessness that made road deliveries vulnerable to attacks by bandits.
MPs are worried that export industries will suffer without the border facility, and the project will become a white elephant if Mozambique does not live up to its part of the deal.
Mozambique's high commission
to Swaziland was not available for comment.