'Political vanity' motivates proposed Swazi airport

James Hall
SWAZILAND'S PROPOSED R1,4 billion Millennium Airport, which Prime Minister Sibusiso announced in 2000 would be built in the eastern lowveld near the rail depot Mpaka, remains in development despite mounting evidence that the project is economically non-sustainable.
"The opening of the Kruger Mpumalanga International airport so close by should put paid to the idea of a major international airport at Mpaka," says a source in the local airfreight business. He describes the Millennium Airport as "a politically-motivated vanity project that cannot fly."
The KMI airport, 20 minutes north of Mpaka by air, is expected to act as a regional hub for tourists and freight. Millennium Airport developers projected the Mpaka facility would be used by tourists headed for Kruger, and by freight transporters at the expanding Mpaka industrial park abutting the airport site.
"The type of products projected to be produced at Mpaka will rely on rail for transport to Richards Bay or Maputo. Items requiring air transport, like cut flowers, aren't produced in the lowveld. They tend to go by truck to Johannesburg International," says Gideon Mahlalela, CEO of Swaziland Railways, which first developed the area.
King Mswati is on record as supporting the Millennium Airport.
"However, the king is also an avid conservationist, and his advisers have not told him that all the game birds at Swaziland's largest parks will have to be destroyed to clear flight paths," says one of the conservationists who opposes the airport project.
Swaziland's freight haulers, including overnight delivery services, say they would still rely on the centrally located Matsapha Airport, 25 kilometres east of Mbabane.
The consensus of opinion is that the Mpaka site, 150 kilometres east of Mbabane, is "the middle of nowhere," and usage would increase transport costs and travel times.