Newly appointed Ingonyama Trust Board (ITB) chairperson Inkosi Thanduyise Mzimela on Tuesday met parliament’s land reform portfolio committee and will convene a meeting of the entity’s new board next week.
This despite attempts at the weekend by Inkosi Mangosuthu Buthelezi to have king Misuzlu ka Zwelithini, the board’s sole trustee, reverse his decision to remove Jerome Ngwenya as chairperson.
On Friday, Buthelezi, the king’s traditional prime minister, issued a statement on Zwelithini’s behalf, saying the nomination of Mzimela had been withdrawn and that Ngwenya remained as board chairperson.
In the statement Buthelezi claimed that Mzimela had “from the outset pleaded for his nomination to be withdrawn”.
“His majesty today announced the withdrawal of Inkosi Mzimela,” Buthelezi said. “His majesty has confirmed that the Ingonyama Trust Board is still chaired by the king’s nominee. Former judge Jerome Ngwenya remains chairperson of the board.”
Buthelezi said this arrangement would remain in place “until further announcement, following discussions which his majesty has requested between the king, the chairperson and myself”.
But on Tuesday Mzimela appeared at a meeting of the agriculture, land reform and rural development portfolio committee in parliament, at which his appointment was welcomed byMPs and Land Reform Minister Thoko Didiza.
Didiza told the committee that the king had written to the department nominating Mzimela as chairperson of the ITB — which administers nearly 2.8 million hectares of traditionally administered land on the monarch’s behalf — and that this nomination had not been withdrawn.
Ngwenya, who occupied the position for two decades, had revolted against the king’s decision to intervene in the ITB and replace him with Mzimela and has given notice that he will challenge Didiza’s appointment of an interim board for the ITB.
The king made his intervention days after the Mail & Guardian exposed a dubious R41 million investment by the ITB’s investment wing, Ingonyama Holdings, (IH) at the beginning of March, ordering him to publicly account for the spending.
Ngwenya and former ITB chief executive officer Lucas Mkhwanazi are the directors of Ingonyama Holdings, which was set up in 2019 and which has thus far not accounted for its finances to either the ITB or parliament.
At the time, Ngwenya said that a dispute had been declared with the consultancy it paid, AIN Private Capital (Pty) Ltd, over its failure to meet milestones in delivering R2 billion in return for the payments.
Didiza said although her department “noted” Buthelezi’s statement, there had been “no formal communication to us that indicates anything different from the letter [the king] had written to us”.
She said Mzimela and his new board would meet and deal with the concerns raised by the committee regarding the ITB’s finances and administration, and would also have to look at the court challenge against the high court ruling declaring its residential leases unlawful.
Ngwenya appealed against the ruling by the Pietermaritzburg high court setting aside the residential leases and ordering the ITB to pay back the revenue it had raised from people whose permission to occupy (PTO) certificates had been converted into leases.
Mzimela told the committee he was still waiting to have his first meeting of the new board and for a handover process from the old board and Ngwenya, after which they would report in detail to parliament on the way ahead.
He said there had been “allegations about misappropriation of funds” and that “we will look into it. If it needs investigating, we will do an investigation”.
ITB chief executive Vela Mngwengwe said the new board would have to look at how it ensures accountability by Ingonyama Holdings.
Mngwengwe said the previous board had attempted to ensure some accountability but had failed because Ngwenya and Mkhwanazi believed they had to account to the trustee, and not to the board, which they only addressed out of “courtesy.”
This “never got resolved” and Ingonyama Holdings “never really accounted to the board”.
“We would not know where it did account to the trustee as there was no mechanism to establish this,” Mngwengwe said. “This is an issue that the new board will have to sort out.”
In response to detailed questions from the committee about his turnaround strategy for the board, Mzimela requested that he be allowed to meet the board and staff before responding to parliament.
Committee chairperson Mandla Mandela gave the committee until 12 May to provide it with written responses to questions about its finances and administration.