PRETORIA (Reuters) - Leaders of the Southern African Customs Union (SACU) agreed on Friday to reconsider how they share their trade duty revenues, a move that could hit Botswana, Namibia, Swaziland and Lesotho very hard.
Tensions have been mounting within the 100-year-old SACU, the world's oldest customs agreement, because of a perception in South Africa, easily its biggest economy, that its customs receipts are bankrolling its four smaller neighbours.
According to the International Monetary Fund, SACU revenues account for nearly two thirds of official revenue in landlocked Swaziland and Lesotho, just over a third in Namibia and 25 percent in diamond-rich Botswana.
