Priest: Swaziland would not need food aid if government spent wisely

Published: 2008-03-24

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (CNS) -- Swaziland would not need international food aid if its government spent wisely, said Father Pius Magagula, an official of the justice and peace commission of Swaziland's Manzini Diocese. Noting that Swazi King Mswati III has spent millions of dollars on overseas property for his family, Father Magagula criticized the king for "complaining that the nation is hungry when money is splashed out like that." Government spending on the country's agricultural needs "would lessen our dependency on aid, which we cry out for year after year," Father Magagula said in a telephone interview from Manzini. "Food aid does not help much," he said, adding, "We get genetically modified food thrown to us, because we are pretending to be beggars." The "culture of food aid breeds laziness, when there is so much satisfaction to be gained from knowing that we are able to feed ourselves," he said.

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