Pietermaritzburg - The Ingonyama Trust Board (ITB), a body of authority giving direction and having oversight over the Ingonyama Trust whose sole trustee is Zulu King, Misuzulu KaZwelithini, has informed its employees that it intends to retrench a majority of them.
In a memo to staff, and which IOL has seen, the board told the employees that the move to offload staff has been on the table since 2020 and was temporarily not implemented when the board was changed.
With its financial fortunes in a sharp decline over the past few years, the board told the staff that it has no option but to retrench some of them and restructure its organogram.
Furthermore, once the retrenchment process was done, the entity said it would revise the duties of the remaining staff.
NEWS: Facing mounting financial challenges, the Ingonyama Trust Board (ITB) has informed its staff that it intends to retrench a majority of them. Currently, the board has 58 employees and once the process is done, it wants to have not more than 30 full-time staff members. @IOL
— Sihle Mavuso (@ZANewsFlash) September 20, 2022
In the end, the board, whose operations are based in Pietermaritzburg, said it could only survive if it cut its workforce to not more than 30 staff members from 58 full-time staff, which comes with a huge monthly wage bill.
“The request to transfer Trust funds to bail out the ITB continued unabated. This has resulted in the Trust funds transferred from the Trust to the administration of the Board exceeding the departmental grant.
“As at date: The Secretariat has requested Seventeen million rand to meet the Board’s financial obligations. This is over and above an amount in excess of R10 million having already been transferred to the administration of the board. This kind of money is not available.
“The Secretariat has informed the Board that the Department has made it clear that there would be no substantial increase in the Board’s funding in the foreseeable future.
“The Secretariat is unable to settle all outstanding debts of the Board on time due to financial inadequacy of the ITB.
“There are staff members who are not gainfully employed for some time now (meaning they are employed, but they are not performing any duties).
The board said what is left now is to trigger the process of retrenchment, and labour unions with bargaining power would be contacted.
“There are staff members who are not gainfully employed for some time now (meaning they are employed, but they are not performing any duties).
The board said what is left now is to trigger the process of retrenchment, and labour unions with bargaining power would be contacted.
“As it is always the case, it is a prerequisite that employees directly and those who are members of trade unions through the union, are kindly requested to provide every information which could help reduce or eliminate any retrenchment,” the Board said in the memo to staff.
Both the chairperson of the board, Judge Jerome Ngwenya, and the chief executive officer of the ITB, Advocate Vela Mngwengwe, did not respond when IOL asked them when they expected to conclude this process.
The Ingonyama Trust is faced with financial challenges as it has to refund millions of Rands to people it billed for rent for their homes built on land under its care.
This was after, in June 2021, the Pietermaritzburg High Court nullified the leases when the Council for the Advancement of the South African Constitution and Rural Women Movement approached the court for a binding relief.