Swaziland plans R30bn inland port

Project will link country to ocean via canal running through Mozambique

A R30 BILLION inland port and canal to link landlocked Swaziland with the Indian Ocean has been endorsed by the prime minister and the cabinet.

Government ministries announced this week they were at work to make the gargantuan undertaking a reality.

The canal of sufficient size to accommodate cargo vessels will originate in Mozambique south of Maputo and cross into Swaziland’s Lubombo province where a port will be dug at Mlawula.

The project may be government’s unofficial acknowledgement that long-standing land claims for parts of KwaZuluNatal, which if acquired from South Africa would extend Swaziland to the Indian Ocean, are unlikely to be achieved.

“At government level, we are fully behind the project and we are giving it undivided support,” Minister of Commerce, Industry and Trade Gideon Dlamini told the Times of Swaziland this week.

The project developers, Swazi real estate magnate Moses Motsa and Mark Andrade, are selling the project as a way to create 10 000 construction jobs to boost trade for Swaziland’s ailing economy. They said the port would occupy 15 hectares to 20ha of land in Swaziland’s dry eastern lowveld.

Mechanised locks

The proposed port location is 275m above sea level, so a mechanised system of locks would have to be engineered.

Details of the project have not been released but the developers said the port would have multiple docks capable of handling four ships at a time.

“The project owners had done presentations to cabinet and we interrogated it and found that it is a wonderful one. Following cabinet’s realisation

Developers envision a massive waterway where large freighters carrying cargo… can pass.

that the project is good and viable, Prime Minister Sibu- siso Dlamini then tasked the different concerned ministries to start working together with the project owners straight away,” Dlamini said.

Swaziland’s Foreign Ministry plans open negotiations with the Mozambique government to obtain the required rights of way to build the canal.

“This isn’t an irrigation canal. The developers envision a massive waterway where large freighters carrying containerised cargo and even tourist ships can pass,” said a source close to the project.

Motsa said the port would relieve congestion from the ports of Durban and Maputo.

The port would also boost Swazi exports, developers said.

Swazi exports currently shipped via Maputo and Durban include citrus and sugar.

Expulsion

Exports of textiles via Durban have diminished this year after Swaziland’s expulsion from the US trade initiative the African Growth and Opportunities Act for the government’s failure to honour labour and human rights obligations.

No known environmental impact assessment has been undertaken. Mlawula is a remote and sparsely populated area with two major nature reserves. Conservationists are concerned about the impact on the parks and the delicate ecosystem.

Sources of funding for the project have not been revealed.

The government has not committed financial resources towards its R30bn price tag beyond the facilitation efforts of various ministries.

The project will cost more than double the R14bn in revenue that the Swazi government generated through taxes and other means in 2014/15, according to Finance Minister