This meeting of the House of Traditional Leaders has been called for us to comment on the recent Bill introduced by the Minister for Local Government on Housing and Traditional Affairs, the Honourable Mike Mabuyakhulu, which intends to regulate traditional leadership in our province. This Bill intends to implement the legislation adopted at the National Level. In the Executive of the House of Traditional Leaders we have considered very carefully this Bill, and found it to be extremely flawed. We have captured concerns in a memorandum of legal points which we have formulated with the assistance of legal experts. However, over and above the legal points set out in that memorandum, which members of this House will have the opportunity of reading in detail, there are additional concerns which I feel need to be brought to the fore. In fact, it is now clear that the many fears, which we expressed in the past, have come to pass.

It is obvious that this Bill will have the final effect of disestablishing traditional authorities, and reducing leadership, to become an appendix, an appurtenance and a dog on the leash of municipalities. For instance, one of the provisions of this Bill will force all traditional leaders to serve on municipal councils, even though the national legislation did not make this requirement obligatory, and the coalition of traditional leaders had long taken the position that we would not participate in municipal councils.

The very genesis of this Bill shows the content with which traditional leadership has been dealt with. Even though this Bill pertains to us, we were not involved in its drafting. We are now consulted after its publication, on the same level as anyone else. By the same token, this Bill intends to abolish our House of Traditional Leaders, as it was previously constituted under the existing legislation, to be constituted into a much diluted form as a derivative of district houses. This was decided without our involvement and nobody ever paid us the courtesy of telling us what is wrong with the present arrangement. One does not change something, unless there is a generalised perception that it is not working properly.

By introducing this Bill, the provincial government also makes it clear that they would not intend to have provisions relating to traditional leadership, and possibly even the Monarchy, in the Constitution of the province of KwaZulu Natal. In fact, it would be nonsense to write legislation while a constitution-making process is taking place. As traditional leaders, I think that we need to make the position that this Bill is highly premature, and we must wait for the outcome and finalisation of the constitution-making process, so that whatever provision in provincial legislation is to be made for traditional leadership, and the Monarchy, may dovetail with what is written in the Constitution. Provincial legislation must be consistent with what is written in the provincial Constitution. There would be no reason to adopt this Bill when the provincial Constitution may carry provisions, which are in conflict with it, and which would make this Bill automatically unconstitutional.

This Bill shows clearly that traditional authorities, as we know them, are going to be a feature of our past. Our administration of traditional communities and traditional leadership is going to be disestablished. In its place there is going to be a traditional council, with no administrative capacity, budget or its own resources. The traditional council will only have those resources and budgetary allocations which a municipality may wish to give to it. If the municipality does not wish to give anything to a traditional council, all that will exist of a Traditional Council is going to be the inkosi himself and the members of the council, possibly even without an office, telephone or a secretary.

We must read this Bill not only for what it says, but also for what it fails to say. For instance, no reference is made to the power of the traditional council to impose levies, taxes or fines. It follows that if this power is not contemplated, and expressly recognised, as a matter of law it is no longer allowed. The entire system of governance of our community is effectively disestablished. There will no longer be traditional authorities and there will not be any power to impose taxes, levies and fines. This is the measure of the extent to which solemn promises have been broken. This is the very subject matter in respect of which we went to see the President in May, 1999, and we negotiated with him extensively to ensure that the powers and function of traditional authorities, in local government, would be preserved. He gave us his word that the powers and functions of traditional authorities will be preserved and, if already obliterated, they would be restored, to the point of promising that the Constitution would be changed to achieve such purpose. Such promise was reiterated in a solemn document signed by the Deputy President on behalf of Cabinet on 30th November, 2000, which was the basis on which traditional leaders waived their objections to elections being held in their areas.

There are many problems in this Bill, some of which are mentioned in the memorandum which we prepared for consideration by this House. There are problems, over and beyond those which that memorandum identified. The fact is that this Bill tried to superimpose a legislative framework on the reality of traditional leadership, which does not suit the specific characteristics and requirements. For instance, an example of this inconsistency between the legislative approach and our tradition can be seen in the provisions requiring traditional leaders to disclose and declare all gifts received. There was a similar provision in national legislation, which was being discussed in Cabinet when I was a Minister. At that time I indicated that, as a traditional leader, I would be receiving customary slaughtering of animals in my honour, and that a traditional leader is entitled to take some of the meat back home. At the time, President Mbeki himself told me that matters of this nature would not be covered by legislation requiring the disclosure of gifts. However, there are these types of ambiguities which will emerge once two different approaches are forced to coexist. It is customary for communities to provide to the needs of a traditional leader. However, in terms of this legislation, any contribution of the community to a traditional leader will need to be classified as a gift.

For me, the most painful feature of this Bill is that it completely ignores the reality of the Zulu nation and that of our Zulu Monarchy. It provides for traditional leadership and the Monarch, rather than the Monarchy, as if they were isolated realities which had to be placed in a different structure, which has nothing to do with our Nation or our Kingdom. In placing traditional leadership and the Monarchy within the existing government reality, the Bill determines that they both shall be subservient to the Premier, and municipalities respectively. Traditional leadership is made completely subservient to municipalities, while His Majesty is placed at the mercy of the Premier and within a framework of limits, discretionary powers and controls, which enable the Premier to have enormous influence over His Majesty. The Zulu Monarchy is not protected from political influence and becomes subservient to the office of the Premier. The Premier even has the power to have the final say on the appointment of a new Monarch. By the same token, the Premier has the final say on the appointment of traditional leaders. Instead, the Bill should have given much greater powers to the House of Traditional Leaders, giving such functions to us as traditional leaders. It is for us to determine and resolve issues amongst traditional leadership, and those relating to the Monarchy. However, this function of the House of Traditional Leaders is not recognised, because the entire notion of the Monarchy is not recognised. We are given a marginal role, even in respect of the consultation with the Provincial Legislature.

I am very concerned about this Bill and I must seek the wisdom of this House to see how we should react to it. Time and again we have met in this noble House to discuss problems of this nature, and you have seen how most of my concerns have become reality, unfortunately so. There is very little we can do to change this status of affairs, but we cannot accept it passively. We need to make our voice heard. We must place on record how treacherous this entire process has been. This Bill should not be seen in isolation. It should be seen as the culmination of ten years of the betrayal of traditional leadership. As I predicted many years ago, all the promises we received were in line with the strategy of boiling a frog alive in its own water. As you know, one does so by placing a frog in cold water and increasing the temperature very, very slowly until the frog is boiled alive, but without it jumping out of the water at any time. We have been placed in such a situation but we must, at least, signify that we find all this utterly unacceptable and for us, the question of the Zulu Monarchy and the Zulu Kingdom, remains open. All this legislation means nothing in respect of these questions. The Zulu question is a historical question which goes beyond anything the present government may legislate, or foist upon us. We must keep this question open for future generations, and assert our rights as traditional leaders, not only for our own benefit or interest, but first and foremost in the interest and for the benefit of the entire Zulu nation.

We need to put forward the claim of the Zulu nation to the recognition of its being identified within a united South Africa. Some people may have forgotten the fact that the Zulu nation entered the new democratic dispensation of 1994, only against the promise that its identity would be recognised and respected through its Kingdom. However, the solemn promise for international mediation on this issue was broken and dishonoured. We entered a new democratic dispensation on the basis of South Africa becoming a nation of nations, in which each nation could exist as such without losing its identity. The Zulu nation expresses its identity through its amakhosi, its Kingdom and its Monarchy. However, it is clear that what has been termed as nation-building, is aimed only at creating a single nation in which no individual nation, or characteristics, can be preserved. We are not going to be a nation of nations, but a single nation in which there is no space for anyone to be a Zulu, an Afrikaner, as Tswana or anything else. Therefore, our objection to this process goes far beyond our own interests, and in fact reflects those of many constituencies of South Africa. For this reason, I suspect that our objection will have a much greater resonance in the rest of the country, if we can articulate it in a manner which will make sense, not only for traditional leaders, but indeed for much broader constituencies.

This time around it may be important for us to do more than expressing our lack of agreement. Traditional leaders have been very dignified in their reactions. I do not know what else we can do, but I revert to the wisdom of this House to consider these important issues. We must brainstorm to develop a strategy which can make the whole of South Africa understand that our objections are not about a trivial matter, which our opponents are ascribing to us. Even Minister Mike Mabuyakhulu tends to portray our objection to the Bill as having to do merely with levies, taxes and fines imposed by traditional authorities, as if we were upset merely about matters of money. There is an attempt to trivialise the issues, saying that traditional leaders are raising concerns on account of their own self interest and that therefore, their objections should be disregarded because we are being selfish and self-centred.

However, this is not the case, and we are really proceeding from a much broader perspective which is that of our nation, and of our Kingdom, which the drafters of this legislation are ignoring outright. We need to bring back this perspective to the fore, indicating that we will not stand by while the entire Zulu question becomes trivialised. We must go back to the original issues, which we tried to settle during the negotiation process between 1990 and 1994, which remain outstanding. It is clear that these issues are not going to be settled and indeed the present situation has created the impossibility for these issues to ever be settled, within the present context. Therefore, we must find ways and means to bring some of these issues back into consideration, and ensure that we are the last depository of the needs, wants and aspirations of the Zulu nation.