Jailed king still receiving R1.1m salary

Louise Flanagan

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.

Yet last week he got his regular monthly salary from the government as the incumbent king.

“He is still being paid,” said Mamnkeli Ngam, spokesperson 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 derecognition 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.

Dalindyebo has spent most of his time in custody in hospital.

Yesterday, Department of Correctional Services spokesperson Manelisi Wolela said Dalindyebo was in a private hospital in East London. Dalindyebo has 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 is 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 asked the national minister of Co-operative Governance and Traditional Affairs and Zuma 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 without 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’ jail in 2009.

Dalindyebo claimed to have appealed, but no papers were filed for years. Various last-minute attempts to dodge jail failed. He was booked into an Mthatha prison on December 30.