ONLY KING HAS SAY OVER TAKHAMUTI FARMERS INVESTMENT – TFWALA

MBABANE – Chief Liaison Officer of the Hlane Royal Council has submitted before the High Court that it has no jurisdiction over a matter involving a certain sugar cane farm settlement because it is His Majesty the King who deals with matters pertaining to it.

Gadla Tfwala, in his statement has been supported by Lubombo Regional Administrator Sylvia Mthethwa, who confirmed that the King had issued a certain Royal Order to the effect that only heads of families affected by the resettlement exercise were eligible to vote and be voted into the Executive Committee of Takhamuti Farmers Investment (PTY) Ltd.  Tfwala was responding to a founding affidavit of Dumisa Ndzimandze and others, who submitted that on behalf of aggrieved members of Takhamuti he had launched an application seeking an order setting aside elections of the respondents (Boy Hlophe and six others) and that fresh elections be conducted.

Tfwala or government in the matter is represented by Principal Crown Counsel Vusi Kunene while the aggrieved members are represented by Derrick Jele from Robison Bertram.
Ndzimandze submitted that Boy Nkentshane was on July 14, 2014 appointed by the court to be a signatory in a bank account held by Takhamuti with Boy Hlophe. He alleged that they won the matter before the court on August 21, 2015 and the respondents appealed, but such an appeal was dismissed by the Supreme Court on June 30, 2016.

The bone of contention in the application filed in court was that only Banumzane voted and the members of the sugar association were disallowed to vote yet the court held that they should also vote.  “Dividends which are due to the members of the association have not been paid, as a result that the first respondent (Boy Hlophe and six others) want to pay Banumzane only, yet in terms of the judgment as members they are entitled to the dividends. It is only the new executive that can then decide who should be paid the dividends,” submitted Ndzimandze. 

He alleged that on June 30, 2016 they requested Hlophe and the others to allow that elections be held on July 9, 2016 for them to agree on a mutual person to conduct the elections, but there was no response to that letter to date and as a result, the delay in holding the elections had serious financial consequences as they had not been paid their dividends and their children had been kicked out of school because of the non-payment of fees.

Threatened

Further, he submitted that Ntokozo Mkhonta who was supposed to conduct the elections was intimidated and threatened by some individuals, allegedly through the instruction of the first respondents and he requested not to conduct the elections hence a neutral person had to be appointed to conduct the elections.  In response, the Chief Liaison Officer Tfwala, stated that some years ago His Majesty the King had made an initiative at Hlane by resettling homesteads, which were within his Farm 704 with the intention of ploughing sugar cane to the benefit of the families of Hlane. He said the resettling exercise was duly done and all homesteads on Farm 704-Hlane, which belongs to His Majesty were moved to one side of the said farm.

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