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The Act is quite explicit that Ingonyama (Isilo) is the Trustee of such land. The 1997 Amendment passed by Parliament empowers the Board to administer the Trust and the Trust land, in conjunction with Isilo. – Minister Thoko Didiza

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Sizwe sama Yende

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Agriculture, Land Reform and Rural Development minister Thoko Didiza has denied that she is having any intention of usurping the powers of traditional leaders to issue permits on communal land.

Didiza reacted following King Misuzulu ka Zwelithini’s prime minister Reverend Thulasizwe Buthelezi’s statement that the minister would now be issuing permissions to occupy (PTO) – an administrative task which had been given to kings and chiefs.

Buthelezi had said that the ANC was reneging on a promise they made to his predecessor and former Inkatha Freedom Party leader, Mangosuthu Buthelezi, that they would not temper with land under the Ingonyama Trust.

The monarch is the sole trustee of the land. The Ingonyama Trust, empowered by the Ingonyama Trust Act of 1994, is entrusted with 2.8 million hectares of land in the former homeland of KwaZulu-Natal, which is equivalent to 30% of the province’s land surface.

The management of the Ingonyama Trust land has, however, been a matter that left many people disgruntled as they were forced to pay rent instead of being given the permission to occupy.

This prodded the Council for the Advancement of the SA Constitution (Casac), the Rural Women’s Movement, and individual land occupiers to approach the Pietermaritzburg High Court in 2018 to stop these lease agreements the trust was entering into with the Zulu monarch’s subjects and revert to the permission to occupy system.

The trust began cancelling permission-to-occupy agreements in 2007 to force residents to enter into 40-year lease agreements. The leases cost an occupier between R1500 and R7000 every year, depending on the size of the plot. 

Ingonyama Trust had been collecting more than R100 million a year in rentals. The complainants won the case. Although the Ingonyama board appealed, it withdrew days before a hearing at the Bloemfonten Supreme Court of Appeal in November last year.

The Pietermaritzburg High Court had ordered that all future rental of residential land must stop and that all rent paid thus far must be refunded to the customary owners.

The court had also ordered that Didiza provide proof of land rights to customary rights holders.

Didiza’s spokesperson, Reggie Ngcobo, said that the minister had learned with shock and dismay the false statements Buthelezi made. Ngcobo said that Buthelezi had misled the KwaZulu-Natal community and their traditional leadership.

“Furthermore, he demonstrates lack of knowledge of the very intention of the legislation, which vests Ingonyama Trust land to communities in accordance with the schedule attached to the Act,” he said.

“The Act is quite explicit that Ingonyama (Isilo) is the Trustee of such land. The 1997 Amendment passed by Parliament empowers the Board to administer the Trust and the Trust land, in conjunction with Isilo.”

Ngcobo said that Didiza found it inappropriate and unacceptable that a public representative in the person of a traditional prime minister could propagate untruths.

The relationship between Buthelezi, who is also an IFP mayor of the Zululand District, and the ANC has been tense since he took over the role.

Chairperson of the KwaZulu-Natal House of Traditional and Khoisan Leaders, Inkosi Sifiso Shinga, has meanwhile written to King Misuzulu advising him to postpone a meeting of amakhosi to discuss the Ingonyama Trust issues. The schecduled to be on Thursday in Ulundi.

Shinga said that the king needed to meet the house first to hear concerns and proposals it had raised about the way the Ingonyama Trust was run.

“Our view is that the decision to convene amakhosi on this matter is untimely and propose that His majesty considers postponing the meeting and engages first with [the house] to consolidate a way forward,” he said.