BY MBONO MDLULI
MANZINI – The Human Rights Commission is pleading with chiefs to ensure that every Liswati has access to land on Eswatini Nation Land.
This plea was made by Deputy of the Human Rights Commission Duduzile Nhlengetfwa on March 3, 2025 at The George Hotel in Manzini. This was during a meeting between the Elections and Boundaries Commission (EBC) and chiefs from the Manzini Region.
Nhlengetfwa mentioned that their office was flooded with complaints from members of the public, complaining about land issues. In most cases, Nhlengetfwa said it was people with money who seemed to have access to land, even on Eswatini Nation Land.
In Nhlengetfwa’s understanding, the Eswatini Nation Land was held in trust for the nation by the king. Therefore, everyone that belonged to the king should have access to such land. It should not only be given to someone who had money. Nhlengetfwa pleaded with the chiefs to work on this matter as urgent as possible because Emaswati could soon find themselves with no land in future because of what seemed to be prevailing in the rural areas.
The deputy commissioner reminded the chiefs that they were the ones responsible for the administration of land in chiefdoms. Therefore, they should do all they could to ensure that the administration of the land was done honestly. She described chiefs as the footstools of His Majesty the King, stating that if anything went wrong in the chiefdoms, that would mean the king would have been failed by the chiefs.
Human Rights Examiner Nelisiwe Zwane informed the chiefs that they also needed to continue working with chiefs to solve matters pertaining to land. Zwane pleaded with the traditional leaders to work with the Human Rights Commission, as they attended to matters from members of the public, because the matters reported to them happened in chiefdoms.
Zwane urged chiefs to help in ensuring that their verdicts in chiefdoms were written down for future references. Zwane said another matter that was becoming a problem was that of chiefdoms that had two inner councils. She said in one instance, they would work with Indvuna Yemcuba in a chiefdom because they would not just call a chief, as they understood them to be busy with many matters. They could only access chiefs through Tindvuna.
However, there were times where another inner council would surface and approach their offices, telling them that they were the rightful council and the other one was not. Zwane said this instance would be a problem to them because it hindered progress in their work. She pleaded for this matter to be sorted out in chiefdoms.
