Preferential treatment at ITB

Ingonyama Trust Board (ITB) chair Jerome Ngwenya owes the entity more than R280 000 in unpaid lease fees.

Ngwenya’s company, Zwelibanzi Utilities, has leased land at Adams Mission, south of Durban, from the board since 2015. Zwelibanzi runs the Adams Mission Service Station, sharing a shopping centre with a liquor store, a hardware shop and other small businesses.

The amount includes unpaid rental of R64876.32 for the 20172018 financial year.

The lease was converted into a long-term agreement in August 2016 without the rental arrears having been settled, a violation of the board’s policies.

According to the board’s annual report, Ngwenya is also a shareholder of Ketshe Investments CC and Zululand Anthracite Colliery. Both companies have been granted leases by the board.

The report states the ITB’S former chief executive officer, Fikisiwe Madlopha, had also been given a lease for her company, Mkhathi Manufacturing and Distributors CC, in 2009.

Madlopha, who now acts as a consultant for the board, owes the entity R13 000 in rentals.

A source in the ITB said despite Ngwenya’s failure to honour an agreement to settle his arrears by December 2016, the lease conversion went ahead.

The board’s records show that it took legal action against 13 other leaseholders during the same financial year, but not against Ngwenya.

Two South Coast resort owners, whose properties were confiscated by the board and leases cancelled after their premises at Mnini were vandalised and occupied by local residents, have taken the ITB to the high court over loss of income.

Ngwenya did not respond to repeated requests for comment. — Paddy Harper