Johannesburg - Jailed AbaThembu King Buyelekhaya Dalindyebo is still being paid his R1.1 million salary because the president hasn’t removed his kingship.
Dalindyebo finally went to jail just before midnight on December 30 to start his 12-year sentence for assault, arson, kidnapping and defeating the ends of justice. But last week, he got his regular monthly salary from the government as the incumbent king.
“He is still being paid,” said Mamnkeli Ngam, the spokesman for the Eastern Cape Department of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs.
The provincial department is responsible for paying the king, and salary payments are made on the 15th of each month, said Ngam. The remuneration of traditional leaders is set nationally and a king is paid R1 137 922 a year, or R94 826 a month.
Dalindyebo is still being paid because President Jacob Zuma has not signed off on the AbaThembu’s 2012 request to remove the certificate of kingship from Dalindyebo because of his criminal conviction and other complaints about his behaviour.
When asked if there were plans to stop paying Dalindyebo, Ngam said: “The recognition and de-recognition of kings is the competency of the Office of the Presidency.”
Asked if the government was still paying any other routine costs for Dalindyebo’s household, Ngam again referred to the Presidency’s authority on recognition of kings.
The Presidency has not responded to requests for comment since Tuesday. Zuma is in Davos for the World Economic Forum meeting. And Dalindyebo has spent most of his time in custody in hospital.
On Wednesday, Department of Correctional Services spokesman Manelisi Wolela said Dalindyebo was in a private hospital in East London. Dalindyebo had not applied for medical parole, said Wolela.
Despite the battle for the AbaThembu kingship, and claims that this was handed over to Dalindyebo’s son while he’s in jail, Ngam said there were no plans to pay anyone else the salary.
“In terms of the departmental system, the salary is currently paid to the king,” he said.
In 2012, the AbaThembu tribe asked the minister of co-operative governance and traditional affairs and the president to withdraw the certificate of kingship from Dalindyebo, which is the legal procedure.
The Traditional Leadership and Governance Framework Act allows for the removal of a king who is sentenced to more than a year in prison without the option of a fine. It took two decades to bring Dalindyebo to justice.
The incidents took place in 1995 and 1996, and the prosecution was endlessly delayed until he was convicted and sentenced to 15 years in the Mthatha High Court in 2009. He claimed to have appealed but no papers were filed for years.
The National Prosecuting Authority claimed to be appealing, but no papers were filed and the authorities did nothing to implement the sentence.
High court records disappeared and were eventually reconstituted, while the Department of Justice said any appeal was out of time. He lost his bid to appeal to the Constitutional Court last year.
The Star