Royal trust can’t sustain Zulu king in style
TAXPAYERS will continue to bankroll Zulu King Goodwill Zwelithini’s lavish lifestyle because the KwaZulu-Natal government is not yet able to make the royal family pay its own way.
Four years after the royal household trust was set up to fund the Zulu monarch, it has been unable to generate the money to do so.
KwaZulu-Natal premier Zweli Mkhize conceded during his recent budget speech that it was “still a long way” before the trust would start generating its own income.
He said it was “very difficult” to say when this would happen.
“It could be a very long time because there are a number of issues that still need to be sorted out,” said Mkhize.
The trust was established in 2009 to provide financial support for the royal household, including the education- al needs of the king’s children, the running costs of his seven palaces and provision for his six queens.
King Goodwill is considered South Africa’s most pampered monarch, but his opulent lifestyle has been under scrutiny for years because of his excessive spending.
Of immediate concern to the government are the king’s 10 farms, which have a budget of R3.7-million.
Mkhize said only two northern KwaZulu-Natal farms, the 156ha Thokazi and 1561ha Zwartkop farms, were operating properly. “The rest are domestic fields or pieces of communal land identified for use by the royal family.”
He said a feasibility study conducted by the provincial department of agriculture had found the farms to be “high risk and economically not viable”.
“They are small in size, are in poor condition, some are overgrazed . . . They have no irrigation, no animal-handling infrastructure and limited water resources, and others are not suitable for cultivation.”
The trust was dogged by controversy after its first chief executive, Nkululeko Luthuli, the grandson of the late ANC president Albert Luthuli, was axed last year for the alleged misuse of about R3-million of trust money.
Luthuli, who earned more than R1-million a year, was ordered to repay R212 000.
The trust, chaired by Judge Jerome Ngwenya, was allocated R10.5-million this year and the parallel department of the royal household was allocated R63.5-million for the current financial year.
Opposition parties say the delay in making it selfsustainable is “a waste of taxpayers’money”.
KwaZulu-Natal DA leader Senzo Mchunu described the situation as “appalling”.
“This matter must be put to rest as quickly as possible because it is eating up the provincial coffers,” he said.
The IFP’s Blessed Gwala said there was no need to establish the trust in the first place because there was a royal household department.
“Where is the trust going to get money to sustain the royal household, because we’re not like the Royal Bafokeng kingdom, which has mineral wealth?” he said.