Durban - The former chief executive of the Royal Household Trust is fighting for compensation because, he says, he had no choice but to leave the job after nine months because of unrelenting financial demands from King Goodwill Zwelithini, his wives and children.
Lucas Buthelezi, who ran his own business before taking the R100 000-a-month job in October 2013, says he was “constructively dismissed” because he was completely divested of any authority in running the trust and its R22 million annual budget.
His case has been before the CCMA for almost a year, but has been continuously stalled. His attorney, Karen Olivier, says the trust is using “stalling tactics”, and Buthelezi, in an interview with The Mercury, says he believes there is an attempt to drag it out so that he runs out of money and is forced to walk away from his claim.
The trust is opposing the CCMA action but has declined to comment further.
Administration assistant Nonkululeko Mtshali said in an e-mail: “We hope you are quite familiar with the rule of sub judice. You are fully aware that this matter is currently proceeding before the CCMA. The trust will still put its side of the story.”
Buthelezi was appointed on a five-year contract but lasted only nine months in the job.
The “last straw”, he says, was “one morning” at the end of May last year when he was told the king was to marry his sixth wife, Queen Zola Mofu, on July 26 and the celebrations had to be “ big” to coincide with his birthday the following day.
“He wanted R4 million. It was not in the budget,” he said. “I was told if I did not find it, I should go.”
Buthelezi explained that the royal household was a “complicated institution”.
“KwaZulu-Natal is the only provincial government which has a department to take care of His Majesty… this is the Department of the Royal Household. It has its own budget vote from the provincial government and then the department allocates money to the trust for its own programmes.”
He said the department looked after the king’s personal affairs – his salary, cars and travel expenses – while the trust looked after the queens, his 40 or so children and his farms.
Soon after he started his job, he clashed with one of the existing staff members. Trust chairman Judge Jerome Ngwenya then instructed that the staff member report to him, not Buthelezi, creating “two centres of power”.
“I was undermined. Every time I pointed out that something should not be coming out of our budget but from the department, or every time I queried non-budgetary items, I would be told to just do it.
“And I was the one who had to explain everything to the portfolio committee.”
He recalls an occasion when the king telephoned him personally from Cape Town saying he wanted to buy cutlery and crockery for R50 000.
“I said okay because I was still trying to do my job. When the invoice arrived it was for R120 000.
“Basically, whatever he asked for he got.
“There were also procurement issues with the trust picking up the tab for services which were supposed to be picked up by the department.”
He told of another occasion when one of the queens needed a new television set. He was told he had to buy all the queens new television sets, even though they did not need them.
He alleges that when he put his foot down he became unpopular.
Buthelezi said that at what became his last meeting, in June last year, he dug in his heels and said the trust could not provide anything for the wedding and the party, pointing out that the department was not contributing anything.
Earlier, he had made a suggestion that they look for donations or that proposals be put to the premier for more funding.
“Judge Ngwenya got angry. He accused me of being lazy and producing sub-standard work. He said I should leave.
“I could take no more. My heart was beating so fast I thought I would die from stress.”
He described himself as “finished” emotionally and financially.
“I believe they owe me and I want this to be over.”
When approached for comment Judge Ngwenya referred all queries to the trust.
Olivier said although there was an agreement that the trust would give them certain documents by January, this had not been complied with. She said that the matter had been adjournment several times and it was adjourned again last week, again for the documents.
The Mercury