Tutu’s daughter in bitter ‘hijack’ of legacy trust
AN organisation set up to handle Archbishop Emeritus Desmond Tutu’s legacy has quietly shut its doors amid claims that its board was at odds with his daughter, the Reverend Mpho Tutu.
She is accused of “hijacking” the Tutu Peace Trust, which was wound up, say those involved, to avoid embarrassing Tutu.
Mpho, previously based in the US, arrived back in South Africa in 2011 and insisted on being absorbed as a senior executive at the Tutu Peace Trust.
“It was very painful because everybody had worked so hard to make a success of the trust and Mpho just hijacked everything,” said a former senior employee.
“She came to the board and told them that she wants to run the Peace Trust. The board said no because there were legal implications and there was already a CEO.”
Tension between Mpho and the nine-member board, chaired by advocate Dumisa Ntsebeza, escalated. The Tutu Peace Trust was wound up earlier this year.
It has been replaced by the Desmond & Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation, run by Mpho.
Last weekend the Sunday Times held back on publishing this article to allow Mpho more time to respond to questions.
On Tuesday, this newspaper followed up on an offer for an interview via her media spokesman, Roger Friedman.
On Thursday, Friedman said there would be no further comment other than a previous statement provided.
It said the establishment of the new organisation had been a family decision.
But it has emerged that clashes between some board members and Mpho had caused such tension that they had to meet with the Tutu family to resolve matters. When this failed, a consultant was hired to mediate between the parties.
High-profile board members included Deputy President Cyril Ramaphosa, former cabinet minister Tokyo Sexwale and prominent businessman Saki Macozoma.
Macozoma said: “We never wanted to put the archbishop in an awkward position out of respect for him. We decided to just wind up the organisation without embarrassing the archbishop. I really don’t want to talk about that woman’s behaviour.”
Details of the feud emerge weeks after an incident involving one of Tutu’s granddaughters, Ziyanda Tutu.
The 30-year-old was reported to police after allegedly using her grandmother’s walking stick to smash crockery valued at around R50 000 at her grandparents’ home in Cape Town.
Ziyanda has refused to explain her outburst.
But the Sunday Times has established that tension among some of the Tutu children re- volves around Mpho’s absolute control of the Desmond & Leah Tutu Legacy Foundation.
A family member who asked not to be identified said some of them were keen to work for the organisation, but were not able to because “Mpho runs the show” .
Ntsebeza confirmed that the Tutu Peace Trust ceased to exist after parties came to “an amicable” solution. The trust, established in 1998, ran programmes such as a youth peace summit, a schools peace programme and a young women’s leadership conference.
The trust was also tasked with establishing a state-of-the-art Desmond Tutu Peace Centre in Cape Town.