New Swazi airport halves budget

- but economic viability still in question JAMES HALL MBABANE – The price of Swaziland’s new international airport has been halved, from a projected R1,7 billion to R550 million in an attempt to satisfy local and international critics of the project, and in light of a lack of private investors in the project. Unaffected will be a new highway connecting the airport, now under construction at the eastern lowveld hamlet of Sikhuphe, with the central commercial town of Manzini and the adjacent Matsapha Industrial Estate. The airport will give Swaziland the capacity to handle airfreight on a large scale. However, the economic viability of the facility has been called into question by the International Monetary Fund and others. Neither of the two commuter airlines that presently serve Swaziland want to use the new airport, and no other air carrier has expressed an interest in the facility. Construction costs have added to Swaziland’s ballooning deficit, which has risen 200% since 1999, to R859 million, and is expected to nearly double again to R1.5 billion by 2006/7. Economists fear that the deficit, along with Swaziland poorly performing economy, will threaten the link between the national currency, the lilangeni, and the South African rand, to which the lilangeni trades on a one to one basis. The IMF has urged government to cut back on nonessential spending, because the loss of the rand link would bring hyperinflation and further economic distress.