US trade deal collapse highlights Swaziland’s troubles

MATSAPHA — Six months before Swaziland was cut from a crucial trade deal that allowed it to export products to the US duty-free, textile worker Maria Matsebula fell to her knees in front of King Mswati.

 

She begged him to make the political reforms necessary to keep the small southern African kingdom in the deal.

"As workers we understood that the king has all the power," said Ms Matsebula of the last absolute monarch in Africa.

"So we turned to him as king and as our leader to salvage the situation."

A year later, Ms Matsebula is one of thousands of textile workers out of a job after Swaziland failed to meet a string of labour and political reforms demanded by the US in exchange for continued favourable trading conditions under the African Growth and Opportunity Act (Agoa).

"We saw a massive loss of jobs, particularly by our workers in the textile sector," said Vincent Ncongwane, secretary-general of the Trade Union Congress of Swaziland.

Since the country dropped out of Agoa in January, unions say more than 3,000 have been thrown out of work — against the government’s more conservative estimate of 1,800.

In a country of just 1.27-million people, already battling 28.5% unemployment and with 63% living below the poverty line, Mr Ncongwane said the government had no idea of the scale of the knock-on effects.

But Trade Minister Gideon Dlamini said Swaziland has coped well with the US decision.

"The sector that was driving employment was mainly textile, and so we thought — let us begin to diversify and develop other sectors," he told AFP.

"We just woke up to say, let us think differently — not put all our eggs in one basket."

It is a tactic the government claims has already created 1,500 new jobs — although it has provided no details.

Swaziland’s textile industry employed 30,000 workers at its peak in 2004, according to a 2010 report by the African Cotton and Textile Industries Federation.