More idiotic news about nonsensical Swazi port

Despite being entirely landlocked, and possessing no navigable rivers, Swaziland wants to build a port at a cost for the project the equivalent of R30.6 billion (See FTWO August 28).

The reports from Swaziland speak of building a “26 kilometre canal” from the Mozambican coast to Mlawula in north-eastern Swaziland, where the port will be built on a ridiculously small 15 to 20 hectares of land.

This is made even more nonsensical by the creator of this mad scheme, Swazi businessman Moses Motsa, who has plans for a large port with space for four vessels to dock at a time.

And, according to the daily Times of Swaziland, the Swazi minister of commerce, industry and trade, Gideon Dlamini, declared that the government is entirely in support of the project/

The following sections of a report carried by news agency AIM and published in this week’s Club of Mozambique, reveals even more idiocy.

There are multiple problems with this scenario, it said. First, no point on the coast is a mere 26kms from Mlawula. As the crow flies, the nearest point on the Mozambican coast is over 70kms from the site of the proposed port.

Furthermore, it added, as anyone who has driven from Maputo to Swaziland can testify, the land rises steeply. Canals are fine for transporting goods over flat terrain – but if there are hills in the way, locks must be built, dramatically increasing the costs. Building a canal with a system of locks capable of holding ocean-going vessels would be a massive engineering undertaking.

Such an operation is also entirely unnecessary, the report continued. Swaziland’s main trading partner is SA. Over 90% of Swaziland’s imports come from SA, and about 70% of its exports go to SA.

So, for the great bulk of Swazi trade, a canal through Mozambique is simply irrelevant, as a glimpse at a map should show Motsa and the Swazi government.

The rest of Swaziland’s trade, for example with Europe or the US, can be easily handled by the port of Maputo. There are already reasonable rail and road links between Swaziland and Maputo. Upgrading these would certainly be much cheaper than building an inland port.

The Mozambican authorities have not yet commented on the Swazi plan.

According to that Times of Swaziland article, Dlamini said the ministry of foreign affairs and international cooperation was assigned by the Prime Minister “to engage with Mozambique with the aim of reaching an agreement over accessing the sea”.

This implies that, as of last week, the Swazi government had not yet approached its Mozambican counterpart about building the canal.