‘We will work with the EFF if needs be’
The Inkatha Freedom Party also defended the Ingonyama Trust Act, claiming it has been beneficial for the people of Kwazulu-natal
Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) president Velenkosini Hlabisa has signalled that his party would be willing to enter a coalition with the Economic Freedom Fighters, despite its strongest ally, the Democratic Alliance (DA), classifying the EFF as a threat to the country’s economic stability.
Hlabisa told the Mail & Guardian the party was open to working with the EFF at local and provincial level.
“No, EFF is not our enemy number one,” he said, adding this was despite the Red Berets having accused the IFP of wanting to kill its leaders.
“They are not our enemy. We accept EFF as a political entity in South Africa. And, you know, we have an experience. We worked with the EFF at a local government sphere and they made unreasonable demands and we parted ways. But, we said, our doors remain open.”
He said in the Multi-party Charter spearheaded by the DA, the parties had agreed to various combinations at a local government level.
“If the voters compel us to work together with the EFF in Kwazulunatal, in a coalition government, we will work with the EFF, provided we agree on the correct and the right direction to take as a province on behalf of the people of Kwazulunatal,” Hlabisa said.
“Even today, if they want us to open discussion in a particular municipality, our doors remain open— as long as we agree that working together is not going to benefit certain individuals. But we want to take the municipality forward, if we feel the municipality is not performing.”
There have been rumblings in the Multi-party Charter arena about the ANC and IFP forming a coalition of their own.
The two parties have, however, been at loggerheads after the governing party’s provincial chair, Siboniso Duma, stopped Zulu traditional prime minister Thulasizwe Buthelezi from speaking at a government event at which King Misuzulu ka Zwelithini and President Cyril Ramaphosa were present.
Some in the ANC are hoping to form a coalition with the IFP in the province, should the party fail to regain its majority. Polls suggest that the ANC could lose Kwazulu-natal and Gauteng.
Hlabisa said the two parties would need to start reconciliation talks after decades of turmoil, adding that he had tried to communicate with Ramaphosa.
Should the IFP fail to achieve its goal to remove the ANC from power, the party was open to a government of national unity, which would include the incumbent government.
“Now, the coalition government, no matter what you want to call it,
you can call it the grand coalition, a government of national unity or a coalition government, it must be a government composed of responsible leaders who will make the people of South Africa a priority, and who must deploy people on merit, not only as employees, even at ministerial positions,” he said.
He defended the Ingonyama Trust Act, saying it had succeeded in delivering its intended goal to secure land for black people.
Hlabisa said he had been a beneficiary of the Act, through land he inherited from his father.
“That is something different and peculiar only in Kwazulu because you don’t find it anywhere else in our country. We must give credit to that. People residing in the Ingonyama Trust, they have property where they can build whatever kind of a structure, if they have means to do so.”
Hlabisa said the Act needed to be replicated in other provinces.
“All we need to do to take the Ingonyama Trust forward [is] the government at a national level must allocate more land to black people.
“There is land under the control of the government, which is not given to people. If the IFP can become the government of the day, the first thing we will do is audit how much land we have under the control of the government and release it to the people.”
The IFP leader said the party would conduct audits of unused land owned by people living abroad and
then negotiate with the owners and transfer it to landless people.
“We believe in expropriation with compensation, because if you don’t do so, no one will have an interest in investing in a country where there is no security in terms of your land.”
Hlabisa said the size of the cabinet needed to be reduced to cut costs.
“Some ministries are too small to have deputy ministries.
“There is a lot of money which went to the wrong hands, as we have seen through the state capture.
“If you can manage resources correctly, you will be able to save billions of rands, if not trillions, where you can engage people on allowing you to buy land, so that you distribute that land to landless people, and give them a title deed,” he said.
The Act has been a point of contention in the ANC with its integrity commission ordering the party to use its powers in government to urgently repeal it and other legislation undermining the tenure rights of rural South Africans.
The integrity commission’s 2022 report to the ANC’S national executive committee said the governing party should act on the recommendations of the high-level panel, chaired by Kgalema Motlanthe, that the Ingonyama Trust be reformed or done away with to remove obstacles to tenure rights.
The government abandoned this proposal in 2018 in the face of a backlash from King Goodwill Zwelithini ka Bhekuzulu and amakhosi.
The trust controls nearly three million hectares of land on behalf of the Zulu monarchy in terms of the Act, passed on the eve of democracy to secure the participation of the IFP in the 1994 elections.
The Ingonyama Trust Board (ITB), administers the land on behalf of the trust. It is funded by the department of agriculture, land reform and rural development, under whose oversight it falls.
In September, the integrity commission called on Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development Minister Thoko Didiza “to explain the role of the Ingonyama Trust Board” and to discuss the recommendations of the Motlanthe panel, which was appointed by parliament in 2016.
A second report by a presidential advisory panel on land reform, appointed by President Cyril Ramaphosa in 2018, also recommended that the board be repealed or reformed.
In the meeting with Didiza, the integrity commission recommended the Kwazulu Ingonyama Trust Act of 1994 “should be repealed as a matter of urgency”.
The integrity commission said the national executive committee should drive this process through the government and ensure a review of legislation that prevents people — women in particular — from getting access to land.
In November, the M&G reported that the ITB had spent millions irregularly on luxury vehicles, legal fees and tax bills for late King Goodwill, from levies collected on land under its control.
Hlabisa conceded proceeds from the Act should be managed properly.
“I wouldn’t want to speak about that because it is not under the control of the IFP. But the principle of securing land for black people is something which amakhosi in other provinces aspire to,” he said.
Although the monarch was entitled to use 5% of the revenue raised on activities related to his work as the board’s sole trustee, its former chairperson, Jerome Ngwenya, paid for weddings, accommodation and transport for members of the royal family, which the Ingonyama Trust was not entitled to fund.
Not only was a R1.55 million tax bill — including penalties — incurred by the late king paid from trust funds in 2019, but a second payment was made to the tax authority for R459 000 the following year.
Under his tenure, Ngwenya refused to submit its financial statements to the auditor general or to parliament, instead accounting for only the R20 million a year the ITB gets from the department.
The trust collects about R90 million a year from commercial, agricultural and mining leases it raises from land under its control but the details of its expenditure have not been made public.