Durban - When King Goodwill Zwelithini and his six queens get irritated with their state-employed servants they fire them without following labour processes or bothering to tell the government to terminate their salaries.
Consequently, taxpayers have been paying for a number of royal employees who have sat at home for years.
This was revealed to the provincial legislature in Pietermaritzburg on Tuesday.
KwaZulu-Natal director-general Nhlanhla Ngidi told members of the public accounts standing committee that the defunct Department of the Royal Household had been paying salaries to employees who had been sacked because it had been unaware that they had been fired as far back as four years ago.
He said despite the royal family’s decision to dismiss the workers, the department had to keep them on to avoid legal action.
“We are facing a problem because those who have been kicked out of the palaces are protected by law, which requires that, since we employed them as public servants, we must find them an alternative placement,” said Ngidi.
He could not say how many had been dismissed or how much they had been collecting a month.
One of them had retired after he had been at home for four years while getting paid.
He said the employees had been volunteers in the palaces before the formation of the Department of the Royal Household in 1995.
“They ended up staying at the palaces providing assistance. They would be taken care of by the royal family, and when the department took over (the affairs of the royal family), arrangements were made for them to be absorbed.”
The employees had no qualifications and some had never been to school.
“The only qualification required for them (to work for the family) was a love for the king and an eagerness to help.”
He said he did not know what caused the fallout between the royal family and their employees although it had been said that it was their relationship with the queens that was the problem.
“They were without any employment, and we wanted to formalise their situation so that they got an income, but you cannot foresee that two years down the line they would have a fallout with the king or queens.”
Ngidi also told the committee that the Office of the Premier would continue taking care of the king even though President Jacob Zuma had, in December, promulgated the end of the Department of the Royal Household, which had a state budget to look after the royal family.
The disbandment of the department meant the Royal Household Trust had the responsibility of the royal family. The trust had to operate as a business and generate its own revenue.
The executive duties of the king would now be absorbed by the office of the premier.
Royal dos and don’ts
Zulu cultural expert Jabulani Sithole, from the University of KwaZulu-Natal, said being around the king required decorum.
‘There are protocols to be followed. You do not look at the king, you face down. When the king enters a room you move out and, when he approaches your direction, you move away. When you leave the king you don’t turn and walk away but reverse until you disappear from his sight.’
It was also disrespectful for a commoner to offer to shake the king’s hand. It is the king who should make that offer.
“The same rules apply with the queens, although with them it is not so strict. But they also need a high level of respect because of their status,” he said.
The Mercury