Durban - The IFP Speaker of the Umvoti (Greytown) local municipality in the KwaZulu-Natal Midlands is accused of allegedly building a mini-mansion on invaded municipal land, defying a Pietermaritzburg High Court interdict which barred her and others from doing so.
Speaker Thando Dlamini first joined the municipal land invaders around 2020 and erected a shack.
After assuming the senior political office she holds now, she upgraded the shack into an eye-catching mini-mansion along the P74 road in the KwaZulu-Natal-Midlands.
The Speaker's illegal structure is erected at eBovini farm, which is owned by the same municipality where she is the Speaker.
The invasion of the land started around January 2020 when residents started partitioning it, thus forcing the municipality to go to court for an interdict.
At the time, the municipality was under the leadership of the ANC, and the Mayor was Thami Ngubane.
According to papers seen by IOL, the High Court ruled in favour of the municipality and asked the respondents to show cause by 29 November 2020 why the order should not be final.
They never opposed the order, and it became final late last year.
Pictures provided to IOL show that Ndlovu has since destroyed the shack and built a three-bedroomed house with two big garages.
Since the area does not have clean water, Ndlovu has bought at least three Jojo tanks where water is filled by tankers.
The greyish house is now well-fenced, and the land around it well levelled in preparation for what appears to be the first step to pave the entire yard.
Around Ndlovu’s mansion are shacks which IOL understands were erected when the invasion started, and they have not been upgraded since then.
IOL also understands that it is not only Ndlovu who has erected an illegal structure on the occupied municipal land.
It has been alleged that other municipal officials are helping themselves on the land, with some even holding up to four plots each.
“Municipal officials are also helping themselves on this land, and those responsible for municipal land are not acting,” a source within the municipality told IOL this week.
Umvoti municipal spokesperson, Phindile Phungula, did not directly answer why the Speaker defied a court order while she was a leader in society.
Instead, she said they condemn any acts of land invasion, and the municipality was working on the matter of eBovini.
“Umvoti municipality strongly condemns any acts of illegal occupations of land. To this end the municipality, in response to the land invasions, sought out legal interventions through a high court interdict. The final relief was given on the 14 October 2022.
“Following the legal relief, the municipal Council met on the 15th of December 2022 and took a council resolution on this Item after it had been tabled, and the relief was noted and adopted.
“Council Resolution: Strengthen and enforce actions to prevent any new land invasions amongst the adopted remedial actions was stationing of a private security to increase municipal capacity.
“Council noted that those living within the settlements already are deemed settlers above the original farm dwellers that were noted as possible Labour Tenants,” Phungula said in response to IOL.
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