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KALANGA OPERATING STAMP LEGITIMATELY AUTHORISED

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Sir,
 
I consider utterances attributed to Chief Mdlaka Gamedze, Chairperson of the Ludzidzini Council by the media titled ‘Only Chief Mlimi’s stamp is authorised KaLanga – Ludzidzini Council’, to be misguided and unfortunately misleading. The matter of the official KaLanga stamp was settled approximately 25 years ago by competent authorities at the time and is therefore not an issue except in the minds of members of the disputing faction, some Ludzidzini Council members and the office of Ndabazantu in Siteki. According to the article, the Ludzidzini Council has taken a stance to demand the use of stamps belonging to deceased chiefs in communities that are embroiled in chieftaincy disputes as a matter of principle.

Principle

The application of this principle in KaLanga would suggest that the council does not give regard to the peculiarity of circumstances and history in the different communities in which the principle is applied. This would mean that the principle is applied as a ‘one size fits all solution’ which, it is well known, is a bad and ineffective problem-solving strategy. The approach which was used in the KaLanga case was recognition by all related entities that chiefdoms are self-regulating traditional structures. The legitimate leadership of lusendvo was determined according to Eswatini culture and tradition and all governance entities including Ludzidzini Councils supported its efforts and decisions rather than prescribe solutions from the top. The primary concern was the establishment of legitimate interim leadership and secondary assurance that the entity had working tools including an official stamp. The KaLanga chiefdom has an official and recognised stamp which has transcended several Ludzidzini Governors including Mtetwa; Gama and Mavuso. All these governors and their councils had no issue with the official stamp currently in use KaLanga. This stamp has similarly enjoyed recognition of all regional administrators since it was commissioned including the current Regional Administrator, Themba Msibi and boNdabazantu, excluding the current one.

Agreement

The stamp, which is currently in use, resulted from an agreement between the leadership of lusendvo lwakaMaziya as the case should be and the office of the regional administrator at the time. The stamp in question was commissioned to be used by Inkhosatana Ntsetselelo Maziya (daughter to the late chief) given that Chief Mlimi’s stamp was in the hands of the disputing faction which was refusing to hand it over to her. This is the disputing faction which was found to be illegitimate over two decades ago and is now being legitimatised by the current Ludzidzini Council and Ndabazantu. The pronouncement by Chief Gamedze on behalf of the Ludzidzini Council is undoubtedly set out to undermine lusendvo lwakaMaziya, my leadership as the authorised person and the regional administrator.

View

It is my view that by announcing his statement in the media, the chief sought to promote Ndabazantu over the regional administrator and Chief Mlimi’s children over lusendvo lwakaMaziya. Management and administration of chiefdom affairs in the absence of a substantive chief is vested in lusendvo lwakaMaziya under the leadership of umntfwane nkhosi lomkhulu and not in bantfwaba Chief Mlimi who the Ludzidzini Council is supporting by trying to resurrect a stamp which was rightfully decommissioned many years ago. It is important to note that a chief is appointed by and is answerable to lusendvo according to culture and tradition.

Attempts have been made by the office of Ndabazantu and the disputing faction to give an impression that structures I am working with use the stamp to discriminate against followers of the disputing faction. This is far from the truth. Documents, however, have been rejected by government departments in few instances because of insistence by some followers of the disputing faction on the use of the stamp which was decommissioned. Otherwise, all community members are serviced without regard to their chieftaincy dispute affiliation. According to a statement attributed to a clerk in the office of Ndabazabantu, the Ludzidzini Council has instructed their office to ensure that land allocation and settlements are stopped at KaLanga.

Learned

The council has not discussed this matter with me as the interim leader of KaLanga. I learned about this latest prescription from the referenced article signifying that a lot is wrong in the way the Ludzidzini Council functions and the integrity of decisions it makes. The information I was given by the previous Ludzidzini Council was that my delegated functions as an acting chief included carrying out of all responsibilities of a chief in managing affairs of the chiefdom except kukhontisa (extending KaLanga citizenship to persons from other chiefdoms) as the only function reserved for a substantive chief. I have respected this exception in all the 11 years I have served as an acting chief and have disciplined and even dismissed functionaries who have been found to have violated this principle. I am very much alert to the fact that the current Ludzidzini Council does not like the administrative arrangement it found in existence at KaLanga and would like to undo close to three decades of leadership history. This I consider to be abuse of leadership privilege and application of power and authority the council does not legitimately possess.

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