Ingonyama Trust Board bankrolled Zwelithini’s lavish lifestyle

[View in browser]( [Mail & Guardian]( M&G Mornings | Thu 02 Nov   ​​Financing the lifestyles of traditional monarchies by our democratically elected government has always been contentious. But no other traditional kingship has raised the ire of South Africans, and other royal households, quite like the Royal Zulu Household, now led by King Misuzulu kaZwelithini. It is not that citizens don’t want such institutions to exist. What irks a good deal of us is that our taxes are used to enable living that is unnecessarily lavish, when South Africans are battling to feed, clothe and educate their families, and keep the bond paid. The Zulu monarchy has received in excess of R60 million a year – a sum that the vast majority of South Africans – even those with supposedly good jobs, will never come anywhere near to earning over a professional lifetime. The amount is likely much higher, given that various KwaZulu-Natal government line departments and municipalities carry a variety of expenses throughout the year, which should be for the cost of the royal household. The Ingonyama Trust, which effectively owns about a third of the land in KwaZulu-Natal, or 3-million hectares, and whose residential, business and mining tenants all pay rental, has been in the ANC’s crosshairs since 2018 when a panel, led by former President Kgalema Motlanthe, recommended its governing Ingonyama Trust Act be repealed, claiming it unfairly infringed on citizen’s land rights. Therefore, today’s revelations in the M&G by senior politics writer Paddy Harper is certainly going to make the existence of the Trust that much more difficult to defend. What we have here is quite simple: The Trust has and is being used as an illegal piggy bank by the monarchy, even though it is meant to benefit the people living on the land it controls. It does not. The disclosure that the Trust’s own revenues, excluding additional government handouts, is north of R90-million per annum from its commercial, agricultural and mining leases, should make citizens question why their taxes are funding a monarchy at all, given that this appears to be a lucrative private enterprise. What is clear is that the status quo simply cannot remain. In a week where our National Treasury has called for drastic cuts, snipping the financial umbilical cord to unelected monarchs looks like a quick win. Des Erasmus | Online Editor ADVERTISEMENT [King Goodwill Zwelithini has instructed the Ingonyama Trust Board to put together a team of lawyers to take the matter of dissolving the trust to the Constitutional Court.]( Premium [Ingonyama Trust Board bankrolled Zwelithini’s lavish lifestyle]( The ITB bought the late Zulu king a R2.9 million BMW, paid his tax bills and legal fees, as well as the royal family’s transport and accommodation [// Read more]( [Godongwana sticks to fiscal consolidation rule book]( The minister underlined that in the wake of efforts to grow the economy, the government must respect budget constraint [// Read more]( [Transnet bailout still a possibility but treasury wants to see progress first]( Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana said he would resist the temptation to respond to the entity’s call for a cash injection through the media [// Read more]( Recommended Reads [Shark barrier tech from South Africa installed in Bahamas]( Combining biomimicry of a kelp forest and magnetic fields to keep sharks at bay while humans play [// Read more]( [Social relief of distress grant extended until 2025]( But Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana says beyond that mark, a comprehensive review of all welfare grants is needed [// Read more]( [Government budgets for natural disasters]( A report by treasury and the World Bank estimated the average funding gap for financing disaster response in South Africa at R2.3 billion [// Read more]( [Plans to reconfigure state will be announced in February]( The aim is to get better value for money spent, and to close or merge entities, Finance Minister Enoch Godongwana said [// Read more]( [KwaZulu-Natal municipalities in dire straits]( Municipalities collectively owe Eskom more than R1 billion and are mired in unauthorised and wasteful expenditure and lack of consequence management [// Read more]( [Share]( [Share]( [Tweet]( [Tweet]( [Forward]( [Forward]( This email was sent to {EMAIL} [why did I get this?]( [unsubscribe from this list]( [update subscription preferences]( Mail & Guardian Media LTD · 25 Owl St · Braamfontein · Johannesburg, Gauteng 2001 · South Africa