Land Reform and Rural Growth Minister Mzwanele Nyhontso. (OJ Koloti/Gallo Pictures by way of Getty Pictures)
Land Reform and Rural Growth Minister Mzwanele Nyhontso accused King MisuZulu kaZwelithini of performing past his powers by suspending members of the Ingonyama Belief Board (ITB), saying that authority the truth is rested with himself.
The Zulu monarch final week suspended the board members — together with the ITB chief government officer and chief monetary officer — pending an investigation into alleged potential breaches of the Public Finance Administration Act.
However in an announcement on Friday, the board members mentioned the king didn’t have authority to droop anybody within the Ingonyama Belief, including that his transfer adopted a “shocking” letter in early December wherein MisuZulu notified them concerning the appointment of 1 Stephen Jabulani Rakwena of Van Rensburg Kruger Rakwena Attorneys to undertake particular trustee features. The ITB mentioned final week’s letters suspending a lot of the board have been distributed by Rakwena.
On Monday, Nyhontso mentioned in keeping with the Public Finance Administration Act (PFMA) and the Ingonyama Belief Act, solely the lands minister appoints the Ingonyama Belief Board.
“The PFMA additional empowers the minister to nominate or take away and by extension droop the members of the board because the entity’s government authority. It due to this fact follows that the king acted extremely vires by suspending the members of the board, this energy is solely positioned on the minister,” he mentioned in an announcement.
“The choice to droop the board members and motion of the king to decide on to run the board on his personal, with the ‘sole unaffected board member’, not solely flies within the face of excellent company governance however can even not stand authorized scrutiny if challenged.”
“The consequence of those actions which can be extremely vires is that the board stays in workplace till the minister decides in any other case, even then solely after following correct processes,” Nyhontso added.
King MisuZulu has beforehand requested Nyhontso to dissolve the ITB, accusing its members of “hostility” and of refusing to cooperate along with his imaginative and prescient for the entity. The monarch is the ITB’s sole trustee and can be its chairperson, a job he took on after firing Thanduyise Mzimela, who he had put in final 12 months after eradicating long-serving chair Jerome Ngwenya.
The ITB runs the affairs of the Ingonyama Belief, which controls almost three million hectares of land in KwaZulu-Natal on behalf of the monarch, and falls beneath the land reform ministry. The minister appoints the board in session with the king, the premier of KwaZulu-Natal and the Home of Conventional Leaders.