Swazi king in ilobolo scandal

SWAZILAND's King Mswati III has enraged the people of his impoverished kingdom by failing to pay ilobolo for one of his wives - a tradition strictly followed by his subjects.

It emerged this week that the 37-year-old monarch failed to pay lobolo for his estranged wife, Inkhosikati Putsoana Hoala. He is also said to have neglected to support her since she left Swaziland last year.

The fifth of the king's 12 wives, Hoala married him in 1987, when she was still a schoolgirl of 15. She left her country last year to live with relatives in Johannesburg.

The news that the king had neglected to pay lobolo to her family was met with shock and outrage among Swazis.

Swazi men are strictly bound by tradition to pay ilobolo, usually in the form of cattle or cash, to the families of their brides.

The royal household has refused to be drawn into the matter and Mswati's traditional prime minister, Jim Gama, declined to comment.

Hoala recently wrote to the monarch to plead for financial support and custody of their two children.

The chief executive in the king's office, Roy Fanourakis, said "claims that the king has neglected her are not true".

He said " certain things" were being done to cater for Hoala 's needs in South Africa.

He said the royal couple's son, Bandzile, 13, was at school in London, but declined to comment on the whereabouts of their eight-year-old daughter, Sibahle.

The Sunday Times has seen the letter in which Hoala requests custody of the children and asks the monarch to provide Hoala and the children with a house and car.

Hoala says in the letter that, since her marriage to the monarch about 18 years ago, she had relied on an allowance from the Royal coffers - but had received no income since moving to South Africa .

"It is therefore my ardent request that I be provided with maintenance," she says.

Hoala was in Grade 10 when she left school to marry the king.

"His Majesty will appreciate my education skills are extremely limited," she says in the letter. "In order for me to attain full financial independence I have to have qualifications, which will put me on an equal footing with other people in the outside the world."

Senior officials close to the King's office said that any attempts by Hoala' s family to get custody of the children would not be met, because Swazi traditionalists fear royal children are "polluted if they grow up outside the royal household".

The king's subjects were divided this week over whether the children should be allowed to live with their mother.

Speaking freely to the Sunday Times after local newspapers had been warned not to report on the issue, many said the king should do the honourable thing and give up custody of the children because he had not paid lobolo to the family.

"He has disgraced the Swazis," said 48-year-old Celiwe Matsebula of Mbabane.

"Swazis pay ilobolo to their wives, and this includes the king.

"If [Hoala's] family wants the children, surely they can have them, because the king has not paid the fine he's supposed to pay," she said.

But 37-year-old Nomsa Mabena, of Nhlangano, southeastern Swaziland, said the King could not be judged. "You can't judge the king. He can do as he pleases."

Mswati, the head of one of Africa's poorest countries and one devastated by the Aids pandemic, continues to be dogged by controversy over his selection of girls at the annual Reed Dance held in August.

His wives are said to be exceedingly worried about the calibre of young women that he has taken to selecting recently, as some are believed to have had previous relationships.