James Hall
MBABANE - Swaziland's new minister of transportation, Titus Mlangeni, the only new face to be added to government's cabinet reshuffle, will head a ministry endowed with new funds for capital expenditure for road network expansion in government's 2001-2002 budget released last week.
Mlangeni moves up from the Swazi senate where he served as a royal appointment of King Mswati. His first order of business will be to supervise on-going road infrastructure improvements like the key highway connecting the capital Mbabane with South Africa's Oshoek border gate, which is the national entrance most heavily utilised by commercial traffic from Gauteng.
R236.8 million has been allocated by the finance ministry for road network improvements. Mlangeni echoes government's belief that foreign direct investment will follow the creation of a decent transport and industrial infrastructure. A good road network comes first, as an inducement for industry to set up here, for new foreign direct investment, and to encourage current commercial road users to expand their operations, he says. Good roads will keep Swaziland competitive in the Lubombo Spatial Development Initiative entered into by South Africa, Mozambique and Swaziland, but which threatened to bypass the kingdom by concentrating on the Witbank-Maputo highway.
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