A row has arisen over illegal funding to self-protection units, writes Anne Eveleth
A departmental secretary in Chief Mangosuthu Buthelezi’s former homeland office, Stan Armstrong, is being named as a key player in the illegal funding row in which R8,6-million in taxpayers’ money was paid to members of Inkatha’s paramilitary self-protection units (SPUs). KwaZulu-Natal administrative staff told the provincial Public Accounts Committee the decision to pay R1 000 to individual SPU members was taken `by the chief minister’s
Ken Ladbrook, a provincial finance department chief director once attached to Premier Frank Mdlalose’s department, said, when probed on how payments were made in the 1994 to 1995 fiscal year, that the late amalgamation of the former KwaZulu homeland government and the Natal provincial administration meant that Buthelezi’s old office continued operating well into the new dispensation. Ladbrook also said the decision was taken by Buthelezi’s former departmental secretary, Armstrong, who now serves on the provincial Public Service Commission. Armstrong is also believed to have played a key role in the KwaZulu Government’s shadowy intelligence wing, the Bureau of Security and Intelligence (BSI).
In 1994, Armstrong featured in the claims of former military officer Rian van Rensburg, that he had participated in training of paramilitary forces on behalf of the IFP. Van Rensburg alleged Armstrong was the linkman between his clandestine work and the leadership of the IFP. Observers say Armstrong’s involvement in the SPU scandal and the illegal Mlaba camp training exposed in 1994 may also shed some light on the alleged links between the party’s paramilitary network and officials of the former KwaZulu Department of Nature Conservation (KDNC). The Network of Independent Monitors (NIM) alleged last year that game reserves in remote areas under the control of the KDNC were being used to train SPU members. In addition to the Mlaba camp, which is located in the Umfolozi Game Reserve, and the Mkuze camp that was used to train the IFP’s Caprivi 200, NIM alleged the Port Durnford forest reserve on the KwaZulu-Natal north coast was used for `48-hour flash training.’ In a statement last week rejecting the auditor general’s claim that the SPU training had been illegal and that it had led to the destruction of the Mlaba camp facility, KwaZulu-Natal MP John Aulesbrook said: `Throughout the training programme, the department of the chief minister liaised directly with the KwaZulu Department of Nature Conservation in order to preserve the environmental integrity of the (Mlaba training camp) area (in the Umfolozi Game Reserve)’.