Zulu king’s Trust being investigated after ‘irregular’ transactions found

The Royal Household Trust on Friday denied that it is protecting employees responsible for their nearly half-a-million rands irregular expenditure.

The Trust takes care of the financial needs of Zulu King Misuzulu kaZwelithini.

In its 2018/19 audit report, the Auditor General’s (AG) office flagged the entity’s R489 000 worth of transactions as irregular.

Despite the AG having made the findings more than three years ago, members of the KwaZulu-Natal Legislature Standing Committee on Public Accounts (Scopa), were told during Friday’s meeting with the trust’s management that an investigation on the irregular expenditure was yet to be concluded.

The Royal Household Trust’s chief financial officer, Sipho Buthelezi, told members of Scopa that the entity has been unable to probe irregular expenditure due to lack of investigative capacity.

“At the time of the findings, we did not have an internal audit committee. It’s not that we had swept the matter under the carpet, we simply did not have the resources to undertake the investigation.”

Buthelezi said the Trust has since established an audit committee.

As we speak, the matter is being investigated. We will submit a report to legislature once the investigation has been concluded.

Buthelezi assured members of Scopa that action would be taken should the investigation reveal that there was wrongdoing on the part of their employees.

The entity, which falls under the KZN Premier Department, manages a budget of more than
R60 million allocated to the king annually.

Part of the funds are for the maintenance of the Zulu king’s six palaces.

Scopa chairperson Maggie Govender said the committee was satisfied with the Royal Household Trust’s explanation.

Yes, there have been delays in launching an investigation, but the current management is not to blame as the irregular expenditure happened years ago.

Scopa is also impressed with the fact that there has been a lot of improvement in recent years in the manner in which the trust is running its affairs.