An investigation into who actually owns Zumaville has revealed that the land, upon which President Jacob Zuma’s extravagant private residence is built, is land that doesn’t actually belong to him.

Instead, the land is communal land owned by the Ingonyama Trust, and King Goodwill Zwelithini heads the trust. The trust manages about 32% of all land in KwaZulu-Natal on behalf of the state for the benefit of its occupants.

So what does this mean?

It means that the department of public works is in the midst of a deal to take up the lease of the land, potentially for as little as R1 000 a year because that’s the general going rate for something like this in KwaZulu-Natal. Those leases are generally valid for 40 or 99 years. Zuma has never declared owning the tenure in his legally required public declaration of interests, despite occupying the property from at least 2000.

On top of this, it also means that not only will upgrades to Zumaville be bankrolled by the taxpayer to the tune of millions of rand (now estimated to be closer to R240 million than R203 million – you can catch up with that by reading the lead story in Friday Morning Spice), but so will the land on which it stands.

Professor Themba Msimang, an IFP MP with similar occupational rights to land in the Nkandla area, described the situation as “a big problem”.

He hasn’t got title to the land; it’s communally owned, and that means that if you are no longer needed for staying there, [the land] reverts back to Ingonyama Trust and is given to the next occupant. It’s a big question mark, especially for someone approaching the end of his term.

Nice vibe, that.

Mario Oriano-Ambrosini, an IFP MP who was involved in drafting the legislation that set up the trust, said the situation ought to have been remedied by the Communal Land Rights Act, which provided for traditional land to be transferred to occupants, but the act was declared unconstitutional in 2010 and the process has been placed on hold.

He said because leases with the Ingonyama Trust could be registered with the deeds office, they could be sold on and Zuma could be regarded as the owner.

However, the investigation has also revealed that there is no record of a deed registered in the president’s name in KwaZulu-Natal.

Of course, requests for comment from the presidency, department of public works and police ministry went unanswered.

Such a fun country we live in sometimes.

[Source: News24]