By Sizwe Dlamini
The Prime Minister of Eswatini, Russell Dlamini, has urged the Ministry of Natural Resources and Energy to quickly establish a state-owned mining company.
Dlamini was speaking at the cabinet ministers’ retreat in Ezulwini. He said that moving forward, the country needs to take advantage of the natural resources that are present in the kingdom.
“The country needs to take advantage of the natural resources that we have, including the minerals that have been discovered in the country. What we have learned from other countries is that for maximum benefit to the people, the government must have a state-owned mining company. The Ministry of Natural Resources and Energy has already begun the process of establishing said national mining company,” he said.
Dlamini urged the Ministry of Natural Resources and Energy to expedite the process of establishing the company as government already has partners who are waiting to invest in the very important initiative.
“As government, we have no doubt that the establishment of a state-owned mining company is the right direction to take, and we urge the Ministry of Natural Resources and Energy to expedite the process as we have partners already waiting to invest.” he said.
The Prime Minister then spoke about the kingdom’s power generation plans, noting that power generation is a catalyst for economic growth, and the kingdom still needs about 802MW of power to achieve a minimum power generation baseload.
“As previously mentioned, power generation is a catalyst for economic growth. To that end, the government has already issued contracts for power generation, which will culminate in an initial increase of power to 198MW towards local power generation. However, to promote industrialization, a minimum baseload of 1,000MW is required. The government continues to engage partners and private companies that would like to invest in power generation. It is critical that we have foresight in promoting local power generation,” he said.
Dlamini concluded by speaking about the kingdom’s flagship university, The University of Eswatini (UNESWA), stating that this is another sector that has received the full attention of Cabinet.
“Cabinet is aware of the challenges faced by our flagship university (UNESWA); hence, we have committed to resolving the existing challenges. We look forward to the presentation of a report from the task team assigned to identify and propose solutions to the challenges confronting the national university,” Dlamini concluded.