Zulu king Goodwill Zwelithini has asked all Zulus to increase their donations – from R5 to at least R15 – to create a fund to fight off the government’s move to scrap the Ingonyama Trust and transfer the land to local municipalities. A Business Day report notes the money will be used to mount a legal challenge and to sponsor marches and pickets in the fight against the government.

Zwelithini and IFP leader Prince Mangosuthu Buthelezi have called for a special imbizo of Zulus in Ulundi on Wednesday next week – the 139th anniversary of the burning of the Zulu king’s palace. They intend to ‘tell their subjects how they must defy government’ on the explosive issue of land expropriation without compensation.

Judge Jerome Ngwenya, chair of the trust’s board, told Business Day that the king would need the donations as he would be waging several battles to protect the land under the trust.

‘The king is of the view that there is land that was forcibly taken away from the Zulu nation and amakhosi by the successive colonial and apartheid governments. The king is claiming this land. Instead of helping him to claim this land, government is busy trying to expropriate the little land under the king. He is very angry about this,’ he said.

Full Business Day report