KZN ANC defends Ingonyama Trust
At the same time the supreme court of appeal has dismissed the ITB’S bid to overturn a high court ruling that its residents’ leases were unlawful
The ANC’S Kwazulu-natal leadership this week went to bat in defence of the Ingonyama Trust, hours after the “entering the kraal” ceremony of its sole trustee, Zulu monarch King Misuzulu ka Zwelithini.
The party’s provincial secretary, Bheki Mtolo, challenged the authority of the ANC’S integrity commission to recommend that its national executive committee (NEC) act urgently to repeal the Ingonyama Trust, which controls almost three million hectares of land in the province on the monarch’s behalf.
In its annual report, the integrity commission had recommended that the Ingonyama Trust Act of 1994, which created the body to secure the participation of the Zulu monarchy and the Inkatha Freedom Party in the first democratic election, should be repealed “as a matter of urgency”.
Mtolo first questioned the authenticity of the report, submitted to a NEC meeting last month, and then declared that it would “never” be discussed by the NEC, let alone implemented.
Mtolo said the government and the ANC had distanced themselves from the recommendations of panels appointed by parliament and the presidency that the trust be dissolved and security of tenure be granted to people living on land under its control.
In 2018, attempts to implement the recommendations of the high-level panel chaired by former president Kgalema Motlanthe sparked a fierce backlash from the late King Goodwill Zwelithini ka Bhekuzulu, the province’s traditional leaders and the Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP).
The ANC in the province — and then premier Willies Mchunu — also rallied against the panel’s recommendations, with the central government eventually being forced to abandon them and instead focus on reforming the way in which the Ingonyama Trust Board (ITB) works.
President Cyril Ramaphosa met the late monarch in 2019 and reassured him that the land under the ITB would remain under its control, with the matter being allowed to die a quiet death by an inter-ministerial committee set up by the president to deal with it.
Mtolo, ANC provincial chairperson Siboniso Duma and other members of the provincial top five were at the new king’s ceremony at the weekend, partially the result of the party’s identification of the government’s handling of the succession dispute as having cost it votes last November.
The lack of leadership in the succession battle — and the failure to assist in resolving the split in the Nazareth Baptist Church — were among the issues used by the incoming ANC leadership to campaign against outgoing chairperson Sihle Zikalala.
Last week the integrity commission report, which has not yet been discussed by the NEC, emerged, again placing the issue of the trust’s future back on the agenda, days before the new monarch was set to perform the ceremony, central to his coronation as the Zulu king, set for Heritage Day, 24 September.
While Misuzulu has been recognised as the Zulu king by the government, there is still a challenge to this from competing factions in the royal family, which had delayed the process of appointing a permanent ITB.
In an interview on Tuesday, Mtolo said the ANC’S 54th national conference had resolved that land under state custody should be transferred to traditional leadership.
Mtolo said the resolution meant the trust should continue and that similar trusts should be set up in traditional areas around the rest of the country.
“No structure can overturn that decision.”
He said the land that should be expropriated was that occupied by commercial farmers, who were 99% white, and not that under traditional authorities.
Mtolo said the integrity commission did not have the powers to make such recommendations.
“You have resuscitated a dead cat. The cat was killed at the national conference. The issue of Ingonyama Trust was finalised by the 54th national conference of the ANC. The issue of the Ingonyama Trust won’t arise at the NEC.”
Mtolo said the integrity commission dealt with the conduct and ethics of ANC members and leaders and had “nothing to do with the issue of policy”.
“I can tell you now that the report of the integrity commission will never find its way to implementation … I think they were overexcited.”
Mtolo said there were “some challenges” at the ITB with regard to “simple things” like management and administration. “We are going to sit with the board, guided by the Ingonyama, and deal with those issues.”
Within hours of Mtolo’s intervention, the trust and the ITB had been dealt another blow, this time by the supreme court of appeal (SCA).
ITB chairperson Jerome Ngwenya had approached the SCA to appeal the ruling by the high court in Pietermaritzburg last year that its residential leases programme was unlawful and ordered it to pay back the millions of rands it had collected from residents whose permission to occupy certificates it had converted into leases.
Residents of Itb-controlled land, backed by the Council for the Advancement of the South African
Constitution (Casac) and the Rural Women’s Movement, had successfully gone to court to challenge the lawfulness of the leases, which effectively forced residents to pay rent for the land they lived on.
Land Reform Minister Thoko Didiza — under whose ministry the ITB falls — had agreed to abide by the court order, which compels her to develop the organisational infrastructure to convert the leases back to permission to occupy certificates and has set aside a budget of R100million to do so over the next three years.
On Tuesday, the SCA issued an order, which had been handed down late last week, dismissing the application for leave to appeal with costs on the grounds that it had “no reasonable prospect of success”.
The decision was welcomed by Casac, whose executive director, Lawson Naidoo, said this would hopefully see the court order being implemented by the government.
“We hope that this is the end of the attempts by the Ingonyama Trust and its board to frustrate the ruling of the high court, and that Minister Didiza can now implement the remedial action ordered by the court,” Naidoo said.
Ngwenya said the SCA appeared to have erred in its handling of the process and that the original appeal still had to be argued.
The ITB had instructed its lawyers to “follow up on this matter” and establish from the registrar how the court could have issued an order when the matter was “still live”.
“That appeal is still to be heard, which is the appeal against the decision of the court of 14 June, 2021,” Ngwenya said.
“At best the application which was dismissed is the one relating to the argument that two judges in the matter should have recused themselves. The appeal relating to leases remains alive.”
‘You have resuscitated a dead cat. The cat was killed at the national conference’