Jaspreet Kindra
The KwaZulu-Natal legislature has ruled “unlawful” the lavishing of more than R700 000 in taxpayers’ money on the Ulundi home of Inkatha Freedom Party leader and Minister of Home Affairs Mangosuthu Buthelezi, and has demanded the recovery of the money.
This provides further evidence of the activist character of the legislature, which this week also received a damning report on the KwaZulu-Natal Department of Housing.
The Mail & Guardian revealed last year that from 1995 to the end of the last financial year, R700 000 had been spent on gardening, landscaping and cleaning at Buthelezi’s house.
It is understood the practice continues to this day.
This week the legislature’s public accounts committee which represents all parties, including the IFP demanded an end to the payments and declared ultra vires a provincial cabinet decision last year authorising the expenditure. It based its ruling on a report by the parliamentary legal adviser.
The province’s Department of Public Works has been instructed to recover the money from its accounting officer. Alternatively, the adviser recommends recovering it directly from Buthelezi or from the national government.
Buthelezi’s adviser Mario Ambrosini said there was “nothing illegal” in the services provided to the Ulundi residence. He said the house belongs to the traditional authority of the Buthelezi clan and is occupied by Buthelezi in his capacity as the leader of that clan. He reasoned that the traditional authority, as a statutory body, was entitled to services, as is Buthelezi in his position of traditional prime minister of the Zulu nation.
Ambrosini said Buthelezi had neither requested nor had knowledge of the services being rendered at the house he occupies. He also said KwaZulu-Natal Premier Lionel Mtshali was seeking legal opinion on the matter.
The details of the province’s generosity to Buthelezi who has no position in the provincial government emerged last year in a reply by MEC for Traditional Affairs Nyanga Ngubane to a question by African Christian Democratic Party legislature member Jo-Anne Downs. Downs welcomed the committee’s decision this week.
Ngubane said the expenditure on Buthelezi’s home was not part of any authorised component of the budget.
The provincial cabinet subsequently tried to authorise the spending by resolving that the amount required for maintaining the residence be budgeted for in Ngubane’s department. The rationale was that Buthelezi was chair of KwaZulu-Natal’s House of Traditional Leaders.
Meanwhile KwaZulu-Natal’s housing department has come under scrutiny by the provincial auditor general, who has revealed losses amounting to millions of rands because of administrative snarl-ups.
The auditor general’s performance audit for the year ending last March, tabled in the public accounts committee, reveals that:
Houses worth R7-million were built on flood plains and springs in Bruntville.
The provincial housing development board paid out R3,5-million to a developer of the Shakaskraal project between February 1995 and June 1999 to develop 360 sites. Only 12 were completed when the developer went bust in May 2000. The land was sold at a loss of more than R2-million.
The department entered into a land availability agreement before approving a R3,7-million housing project in Pongola. As a result, 215 houses built by February 1998 had not been transferred to the beneficiaries.
Makhaye’s spokesperson, Harry Mchunu, said the department could not comment as the auditor general’s report had still to be discussed in the committee.