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We often assume that a person would only want to own one Rolls Royce in his lifetime, as it is the epitome of luxury. It not only costs a bomb, but the maintenance of the car itself is one of the most costly ones amongst all its peers. However, here’s a story about King Mswati III of Eswatini who went all out and ordered 19 Rolls Royce amongst other luxury cars. You may roll your eyes over this once you get to know why he went ahead and took this extreme step. The King is the head of the Swazi Royal Family which used to be called Swaziland. He spent a whopping $24.4 million dollars which converted into INR comes to about Rs. 20 Crores on buying 120 BMW sedans, following his purchase of the 19 Rolls Royce.

However, our King is known to have a big heart and didn’t spend this fortune on himself. The King has fifteen wives and the Rolls Royce was gifted to each of them. However, the reason behind the purchase of 120 BMW sedans is still unknown. The king does live his life king size and is known to have a plethora of high-end luxury cars. He not only owns the most expensive garages in his country but also one of the most expensive in the world. We still don’t know the complete list of cars that he owns, but there are at least 20 Mercedes-Maybach S600 Pullman limousines. He also owns rare models of the Maybach 62 and BMW X6.

Life king size

The Rolls Royce models that were bought by the king wasn’t revealed, however, amongst the 19 Rolls Royce cars that were delivered, a mix of Ghost, Phantom and Cullinan were spotted by onlookers.

The opposition party of Eswatini – People’s United Democratic Movement released a statement about the king,

Last week (early November), a total of 19 Rolls-Royce cars were delivered to Swaziland for the exclusive use of the king, his mother and his wives. To say this is a blatant display of arrogance and total disregard of the poor people of Swaziland’s feelings by the monarch would be an understatement. As a party, we are least concerned about how many wives and children he has. The big issue is that the national purse has to take care of someone’s children when ordinarily in modern politics there is supposed to be a separation between his private resources and the public purse. The Swazi political system is meant to serve the monarchy and its cronies, not the people.

In the defence of the King, the Prime Minister of Eswatini, Ambrose Mandvulo Dlamini confirmed that this is perceived wrongly and is not just a spending spree for the King, instead, the King is following the official policy of the government which states that the vehicles used by the King have to be replaced every 5 years. However, sadly statistics prove that 63% of the country’s population still lives below the poverty line.

Anyone who has exponential means of living life king-size will obviously want to go ahead and maintain a certain standard of living. However, when you’re a king of one of the most poverty-stricken region, it is expected out of the people to have their fair share to fulfil their needs and necessities. Eswatini is a tiny country landlocked between South Africa and Mozambique. This incident has turned the eyeballs of international news channels and other media sources. The King has obviously faced a lot of criticism for spending this huge amount on luxuries for his wives when his fellow people are struggling to make ends meet.