MILITARY INTERVENTION BAD FOR INVESTMENT

It would be putting it mildly that there is now a growing apprehension among citizens who are trying to comprehend what seems to be an emerging trend of military intervention in matters that would normally fall within the parameters of pure business transactions. Not long ago, army personnel were deployed to interrupt a public auction; an act which was later described as triggered by miscommunication. Now we see members of the army placed at the centre of a controversial Sicunusa quarry mine business deal, which the Ministry of Natural Resources and Energy says was necessitated by an alleged plundering of national resources. This is not the picture we want to see of our local business environment that is desperate for Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), particularly when justice can be sought through existing civil avenues which are capable of resolving conflict and addressing business transgressions. In the case of one Mandla Mkhaliphi, a farm owner at Sicunusa and director of NDI Investments, the ministry alleges he broke the law by carrying out mining activities without the prerequisite licence which he failed to renew within the stipulated timelines.  What the ministry is not addressing in its statement though, are the counter reports of a non-transparent application that has been made by other parties with great interest in the mine and how it intends to deal with this application.

involvement

Clouding this development is the alleged involvement of a member of the Umbutfo Eswatini Defence Force (UEDF), who is also from the royal family, in this business matter. If the ministry claims to be protecting State resources, it goes without saying that it also has a fiduciary duty to protect the law of the land by carrying out a transparent process of either affording NDI Investments an opportunity to appeal the non-renewal of its licence (if indeed the law has been violated), or seek a new operator by putting the licence out to public tender. To handpick an operator for the mine would be to reinforce the perception that doing business in this country was becoming more dangerous than risky. We do not and will never condone the breaking of the law by any citizen or business entity; neither should the ministry. Therefore, let the natural course of justice prevail without military intervention to avert an undesirable precedent which, in the eyes of the ordinary citizen, comes across as intimidation.

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