By Zweli Martin Dlamini

MBABANE:King Mswati has successfully negotiated the return of over R100million public funds lost in the widely reported Status Capital Building Society investment after meeting permanent member Dave Van Niekerk.

The King met Dave Van Niekerk at the time when the Status Capital Building Society permanent member was accused of looting millions of public funds, Niekerk’s side of the story was not properly reported by the State controlled media and as a result, he opted to find possible ways of meeting King Mswati before granting an interview to Swaziland News independent publication where he clearly explained the circumstances surrounding the disappeared public funds.

Dave Van Niekerk told this publication on Monday that “he has already paid R10million and made a commitment to pay the balance of the R85million progressively in the next few months.

But before confirming the R10million paid about two(2) weeks ago, the businessman previously told this publication that, R35million was paid as he wanted to ensure that, he “keeps the promise he made to the King” to facilitate the return of the lost public funds.

King Mswati is alleged to have played a huge role in convincing and negotiating with Dave Van Niekerk to facilitate the return of the public funds even though Dave was not directly involved in the investment dealings of Status Capital Building Society but, a permanent member.

It is alleged that, the King was touched after learning that, emaSwati lost huge amounts of money while trying to invest and took it upon himself to play a role in recovering the public funds.

Responding to this publication regarding the latest developments, King Mswati’s Spokesperson applauded the King’s efforts to recover the public funds, he described this achievement as the ‘fruits’ of the King’s open door policy that enables the Monarch eto meet anyone including those labelled as “alleged criminals”.

The King’s Spokesperson told this Swaziland News that, some who failed to understand what the King was doing when meeting Dave Van Niekerk, criticized the Monarch but now, the results of the meeting will benefit emaSwati who lost their monies.

“We still want to continue to believe that there is one thing stronger than all the armies of the world, it is man-to-man talk whose time has come. We are still alive to the fact that the King was heavily criticized for meeting a man most emaSwati would love to hate. We explained that the King has was an open door policy which allows even the most difficult discussions to happen in the best interest of the country and it’s people, we were not privy to the man-to-man talks but we have no reasons not to embrace the alleged pay-back end results which we hope are an eye-opener to emaSwati that any ignorance based talk can be self-defeating,” said the King’s Spokesperson.