The company, which employs about 50 people, started operations in 2000 and is the only company producing alcohol from sugarcane in Swaziland. Efforts by the Ministry of Tourism, Environment and Communications to convince the company to abide by the environmental laws of Swaziland, which prohibit the dumping of waste in rivers, failed.
The ministry then decided to take the company to court, a matter which is currently pending before the High Court of Swaziland. But the legal action has been met with resistance from the country's Prime Minister, Sibusiso Dlamini, who has instructed the environment minister, Stella Lukhele, to withdraw the action. This has led to a serious row between the two top government officers who are reported to have engaged in a heated argument over the issue this week during a cabinet meeting.
Lukhele is reported to have accused the PM of interfering "too much" in matters that do not concern him as head of government. She is said to have refused to withdraw the action to force the company to comply with environmental laws.
When contacted for comment, Lukhele said she was not moving even an inch from her decision. She said whether jobs are lost or not, the health of the people living along the Great Usuthu River where the company is situated in a small sugarcane town of Big Bend was far more important.
The Prime Minister, in an interview on Friday (13 September), said the reason he objects to the closure of the company if it fails to comply with the law is due to the loss of jobs. "However, the issue should be decided in cabinet," he said.
Dlamini accused his subordinate of having a vendetta against him. This is not the first time the two have clashed on certain decisions taken by either of them. The most controversial one occurred about two years ago when Lukhele fired two councillors from the Mbabane City Council whilst she was Minister of Housing and Urban Development.
They have clashed even in parliament over a number of issues and have traded harsh remarks against each other in the local media. Lukhele denied that she has a vendetta against the premier and was not singling him out in the intervention in trying to stop the closure of the company.
"It's a cabinet decision and I wonder which cabinet he is talking about that will be deliberating the issue further. Cabinet told me to compile a progress report on the legal action we are taking as a ministry on the matter," she said.
USA Distillers Managing Director, Louis Borayero, said he was surprised that the Swaziland Environmental Authority is now taking the matter to court. He said the matter had appeared before a magistrate in Big Bend and claimed that the court found nothing wrong with the company dumping its waste in the river. But this was dismissed as untrue by court officials who said the matter was case and was never concluded.
The company is situated within a densely populated area with the Great Usuthu river leading to southern Mozambique running almost 10 metres away. Most of the waste is dumped into this river. The community complained that the smell that comes from the chimneys of the factory was bad and caused sickness to many people living around the factory. Even motorists driving along the Lavumisa-Manzini highway are forced to driver faster when they reach the area due to the bad alcoholic smell covering the whole south Big Bend area.