ITB chairperson Jerome Ngwenya. (David Harrison/M&G)
The Ingonyama Trust Board has been granted leave to appeal against the high court order setting aside its residential lease programme and compelling the entity to pay back millions of rands it has collected from people living on land under its control for nearly a decade.
The Pietermaritzburg high court granted the entity leave to argue its case against the leases ruling at the supreme court of appeal on the basis of “compelling reasons” and public interest in the matter, which affects residents of nearly three million hectares of KwaZulu-Natal that falls under the Ingonyama Trust.
An application by ITB chairperson Jerome Ngwenya for the disqualification of two of the judges who heard the leases case, KwaZulu-Natal deputy judge president Mjabuliseni Madondo and the late judge Jerome Mnguni, on the grounds that their families lived on ITB land was dismissed with costs.
Ngwenya had brought the application for leave to appeal despite a request from Land Reform Minister Thoko Didiza, under whose department the ITB falls, that the entity abide by the high court ruling in the leases case.
Didiza’s department, which was a co-respondent in the lease case brought by the Council for the Advancement of the SA Constitution and residents of ITB land, accepted the court ruling and has since submitted three monthly reports on progress in implementation, which have been delayed by the ITB appeal.
Didiza is in the process of appointing a new board to replace the interim one she put in place last year after the sitting board’s term of office had expired. Ngwenya, as chairperson, is nominated by the Zulu monarch, but the rest of the members are appointed by Didiza in consultation with the monarchy, the KwaZulu-Natal premier and the provincial cooperative governance and traditional affairs MEC and the house of traditional leaders.
On the same day the court sat, MPs during a debate on the department’s budget accused Didiza and her department of “protecting” people who had mismanaged entities under their control, including Ngwenya, and of making “no real effort” to advance the security of tenure of people living on ITB-controlled land.
The ITB twice failed to submit a budget along with its annual performance plan for the 2022-23 financial year, with Didiza refusing to allow the entity — which is funded to the tune of R24-million annually by the department — to table a “deficit budget”.
MPs are to conduct an oversight visit to the entity later this year to meet its leadership, including Ngwenya, who told the committee earlier this month that the entity’s budget failed to cover its salary bill. This had to be supplemented with funds raised by the Ingonyama Trust.
Economic Freedom Fighters (EFF) MP Nthako Matiase said there was a “lack of political will by this department to take tough decisions” to reform land distribution and to ensure security of tenure for the majority of the population.
“You have dragged your feet in developing an overarching land redistribution legislation and have allowed people such as Jerome Ngwenya the erstwhile chairperson of the ITB, to continue mismanaging the affairs of the board, thereby bringing into disrepute the honourable name of the Zulu royal family,” Matiase said.
Democratic Alliance (DA) MP Annette Steyn said the court had found the leases abrogated residents’ rights to security of land tenure, while Didiza “did not protect the right of residents living on ITB land” and gave her three months to rectify the situation.
‘What have you done thus far, madame minister?” Steyn asked. “This judgement is important as it has enormous ramifications for the tenure security of the 17 million South Africans living in all former homeland areas.”
Steyn said the ANC had allowed skewed apartheid land ownership patterns to presist and had denied the aspirations of black South Africans “who want to become full owners of the land”.
She said that not only had there been no effort made to change legislation pertaining to land in the former homelands, but “no real effort” had been made to survey the 7.7 million hectares of land involved, which is necessary to record rights once a system of permanent rights for people living on traditionally controlled land was finalised.
ANC MP Manketsi Tlhape said there was a problem regarding accountability and budget deficits on the part of the ITB.
She said the planned summit on communal land tenure needed to take into account the negative and positive lessons the committee had learnt from dealing with the ITB, along with other stakeholders.
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