Inkosi Mangosuthu Buthelezi says they will never trust government with the land which falls under traditional leaders.
Buthelezi is among the traditional leaders who attended an Imbizo which the King of the AmaZulu Goodwill Zwelithini has called in Ulundi in northern KwaZulu-Natal.
Speaking before the Imbizo officially started, Buthelezi said they would take government to the highest court in the land to defend the Ingonyama Trust.
“I mean to come and try to justify what the government is doing now by talking about tenor as if we’re stupid. Why should the government not trust us to be able to handle it? That’s why I’m answering your question: why should we trust them? The trust is actually presided over by a judge of the High Court Justice Jerome Ngwenya.
“The democratic government of the African National Congress is actually walking in the steps of the apartheid government who without any consultation excised Ingwavume and KwaNgwane and gave it to the Kingdom of Swaziland and I took them to the High Court and they lost the case in the High Court and they took it to the final court and they lost it. They’re doing the same already a decision has been made already that we’re going that route.”
Meanwhile, residents attending the Imbizo at Ulundi in northern KwaZulu-Natal have expressed shock at the proposal to scrap the Ingonyama Trust Act of 1994. It allows Amakhosi to hold all land previously owned by or belonging to the KwaZulu-Natal government, in the name of the trust which the King of the AmaZulu Goodwill Zwelithini heads.
In November last year, an independent High Level Panel headed by former president, Kgalema Motlanthe, recommended that the trust be dissolved and the law that established it be repealed. The MK Veterans Association’s Carl Niehaus says the African National Congress has not yet accepted Motlanthe’s recommendation.
Thousands of people attended the Imbizo which King Zwelithini has organised.
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