The Cabinet and Mangosuthu Buthelezi are at loggerheads again over the controversial Ingonyama Trust Act, writes Gaye Davis
LEAKED documents from a Cabinet committee meeting show that government moves to spike a KwaZulu-Natal legislature bid to re-enact the controversial Ingonyama Trust Act have sparked a major showdown.
In a strongly worded statement tabled at this week’s meeting of the Cabinet committee on social and administrative affairs, Buthelezi says central government action would be “pre-emptive institutional prevarication” as the matter “affects the Zulu nation alone”.
Buthelezi’s furious reaction was to a memorandum tabled at the same Cabinet committee meeting by Land Affairs Minister Derek Hanekom, seeking a Cabinet go-ahead for a Bill amending the Act to come before Parliament during its next session.
“I must say that words fail me to properly express my personal outrage at the contents of this Bill, and I must warn that in this respect my reaction is going to be far more understanding and conciliatory than what may emerge out of the anger of the Zulu nation,” Buthelezi said.
“I plead in the name of peace and reconciliation that we do not go ahead with this proposal which has the practical effect of completely repealing the Act and transforming the Trust into a ceremonial legal entity with advisory powers only.”
As it stands, the Act — passed by former president FW de Klerk in a highly secret deal two days before he was voted out of power last year –puts three million hectares or 93 percent of land in the former KwaZulu under the trusteeship of the Ingonyama, Zulu King Goodwill Zwelithini.
Hanekom was acting in terms of a unanimous Cabinet decision in June last year that the Act be amended or replaced to ensure the Ingonyama remained guardian of tribal land and that provision be made for the alienation of land.
There are deep suspicions within government that re-enactment of the Bill by the KwaZulu-Natal legislature would allow the IFP to make further amendments to encompass all state land in KwaZulu-Natal as a whole.
Expressing his “total and unqualified opposition” to the memorandum, Buthelezi warned that the country would be plunged into a “pernicious and institutional crisis” if Cabinet gave the green light to the Amendment Bill going ahead.
“No other single issue could be more sensitive and more inflammatory for the Zulu nation”, he said, adding that central government amending the Act would “provoke and test the patience and tolerance which the Zulu nation has thus far demonstrated”.
The areas governed by the act include not only tribal or communal land but also land in urban townships, government buildings, roads, dams, parks and commercial and industrial sites.
This was stifling development in areas that once fell under KwaZulu, Hanekom’s memorandum said. Banks denied landholders loans because bonds would be invalid. Residents did not qualify for housing subsidies because they could not get registered title to their homes.
“It is not practically possible for people who need homes or land to become the legal owners or holders of land in these areas, because no land may be alienated or leased without the permission of the Ingonyama (Zwelithini), and (he) does not have the administrative facilities to deal with the very large number of requests which would be received.”
In terms of last year’s Cabinet decision, Hanekom consulted Kwa-Zulu-Natal premier Frank Mdlalose about the matter last month, who agreed to the Act’s amendment but wanted this done by the provincial government.
Hanekom contends that as it is a land matter it thus falls to central government to do so. “In any event it is necessary to bring the situation into line with the position in other parts of the country, to give all South Africans equal rights in respect of land”.
Buthelezi said he was aware of the difficulties of development where land was communal, rather than public and alienable. “The province of KwaZulu-Natal is working on this problem with a view to establishing a system which reflects our goal of pursuing the ideal of a truly modern and yet truly African state.”
The Bill would be seen as “a provocation” to what the province was trying to achieve. He said “very little” would be left of “the facade that this Cabinet complies with the constitutional requirement that our decisions be taken by consensus where possible, if this Cabinet goes ahead with this Bill in spite of my most unqualified objection on such a matter which affects only my constituency”.
It is understood that state law advisors have been asked to investigate and report on the constitutional position in time for next Wednesday’s Cabinet meeting.