PAUL KIRK, Durban | Friday
SEVEN hundred and fifty thousand rand in taxpayers money has been misspent to maintain a private home of Mangosuthu Buthelezi, the Minister of Home Affairs and Inkatha Freedom Party leader.
The money was spent by the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Works on gardening and maintenance at Buthelezis plush kwaPhindangena residence outside Ulundi. In January the IFP-led provincial cabinet attempted, retrospectively, to authorise what was clearly unauthorised expenditure.
Facts surrounding the benefits bestowed on Buthelezi have emerged from a written reply given to KwaZulu-Natal provincial legislature member Jo-Ann Downs by Nyanga Ngubane, the MEC for Traditional Affairs, Safety and Security and Local Government. Downs, of the African Christian Democratic Party, received Ngubanes reply last week, almost six months after tabling questions in the provincial legislature.
Nyanga confirmed in his reply that the expenses at Buthelezis home were not an authorised component of any government departments budget at the time they were incurred. The Mail & Guardian has established that Buthelezi failed to clearly declare the benefit to the national Parliament and also that the benefit is legally questionable. It is not clear whether the house belongs to Buthelezi in his personal capacity or to the tribal authority that he leads.
Official documentation shows that a total of R746_686 has been spent on landscaping and other maintenance at Buthelezis home by the provincial works department since 1994. As Ngubanes reply confirms, there was no legal authority at the time for the expenditure.
On January 31 this year – apparently after questions were raised in the corridors of provincial power and certainly after Downs tabled her question – the provincial cabinet silently tried to remedy the situation by passing a resolution retrospectively authorising the expenditure.
The resolution is marked confidential and headed Support to the Chairperson of the House of Traditional Leaders. Buthelezi, apart from his position as national minister, chairs the provincial house of traditional leaders.
The document says the provincial cabinet resolved that the services rendered at Buthelezis residence be approved retrospectively to the date the chairperson was appointed/ elected to that post and that Buthelezi would continue receiving the same benefit, but financed in future from the budget of the provincial department of traditional and local government affairs.
The rationale for transferring the expense to the traditional affairs budget appears to be an attempt to legitimise it as a benefit Buthelezi is entitled to as traditional leader.
The resolution also states that the benefit be reviewed if and when the President of the Republic makes a related determination under the Remuneration of Office-Bearers Act 1998.
On the face of it the Remuneration of Office-Bearers Act disallows the benefit Buthelezi has been receiving, even if it were in consideration of his position as chairperson of the provincial house of traditional leaders.
Section 5(2) of the Act states that a traditional leader, a member of a provincial house of Traditional Leaders or a member of the Council of Traditional Leaders who holds different public offices simultaneously is only entitled to the salary and allowances of such office for which he or she earns the highest income. The Act states that the president can allow this benefit, but he has not.
Equally problematic is the provincial cabinets retrospective authorisation. A written legal opinion obtained late last month by the provincial parliaments public works committee trashes the cabinet resolution, saying: It is submitted that … it cannot simply done by resolution of cabinet. The committees legal adviser, Nerusha Naidoo, wrote: an unauthorised expenditure can only be approved by the provincial legislature or parliament.
Provincial records show that each year from 1994 to 2000 between R72_000 and R109_000 was spent on landscape maintenance at the residence. A further R146_000 was spent on day to day maintenance over the entire period.
Attending to Buthelezis coldroom in 1998/1999 cost more than R9_000. The previous years repairs to it cost R7_500. A further R862,48 was paid to attend to the swimming pool heater in 1997.
Buthelezi could not be reached for comment.