/ 18 November 2012

No bond registered on Zuma’s Nkandla home

The deed document for the property in Nkandla showed that the Ingonyama Trust was the owner.
The deed document for the property in Nkandla showed that the Ingonyama Trust was the owner.

The Ingonyama Trust, managed 32% of all land in KwaZulu-Natal on behalf of the state for the benefit of its occupants, City Press reported on Sunday.

On Thursday Zuma told Parliament: "I took the decision to expand my home and I built my home with more rondavels, more than once. And I fenced my home. And I engaged the bank and I'm still paying a bond on my first phase of my home."

The newspaper said it had been unable to locate public records to support Zuma's claim that the Nkandla property was bonded.

The deed document for the property showed that the Ingonyama Trust was the owner.

Belinda Benson, Ingonyama Trust's property manager, confirmed to City Press that the deeds office records, uncovered by the newspaper, were for Zuma's homestead.

She said as far as she was aware no bond had been registered against the property.

"Over that particular portion, as it stands right now, there is no bond," Benson told the newspaper.

"Whether it hasn't been registered yet or if it's still in the process [of being registered] or whether the president has elected to bond a different property, we don't know."

According to Benson the trust had to get involved whenever a bond was registered against a property owned by it by providing documentation to conveyancers and banks. – Sapa