The North West province has been plagued by traditional leadership disputes, and the provincial house of traditional leaders and Khoi-San are urging all royal families to resolve their differences with the house before approaching the courts or the government for intervention.
Chairperson of the provincial House of Traditional Affairs and Khoi-San Leaders, Kgosi Thari Maotwe, said this at the opening of the house on Tuesday.
Bakgatla Ba Kgafela royal house
Maotwe’s statement came when the Bakgatla Ba Kgafela royal house was fighting through the courts about who should be the rightful heir.
However, he regards this as a piece of cake if the provincial traditional house is kept illuminated.
“Our advice as the house is that all the disputes by any royal family must be lodged firstly with the provincial house. This is so that a particular team, like the ad hoc committee, will then be allocated that case to deal with. And …for the team to advise the royal family on how best they can handle those disputes,” said Maotwe.
He said that even when traditional leadership issues are addressed by government, the cases continue to resurface. Thus implying that it does not put a stop to them.
“It is our responsibility again as the house to advise the provincial government as to how they can handle such disputes before them. There is this tendency that we settle the cases as the house. And then just because there is a new administration, some of the cases that we settled now start resurfacing. This because the premier is still new, the MEC is still new. Now they go to their offices and say ‘no, we have this case that we want you to handle’,” said Maotwe.
Traditional leadership and Khoi-San
Maotwe said the traditional leadership and Khoi-San have a positive relationship with the government. However, there are some snags.
“We can say our relationship with the government is getting there. Magosi still has several complaints about how issues are been handled. And we hope that as time goes on, the new administration will deal with those cases. Then we will have a good relationship.”
The province has 56 traditional councils. These comprise 54 traditional communities and two community authorities.
MEC for Cooperative Governance and Traditional Affairs (Cogta), Oageng Molapisi, confirmed the issues. He said the province is experiencing over 30 traditional leadership disputes.
Molapisi said his department has developed a strategy for dealing with traditional disputes. It does this by inviting royal families to assist the government.
Government takes tune from the royal family
“We can’t, as a government, determine who is a leader in a royal family. So we always take a tune from the royal family. And that’s the approach that we have taken,” he said.
Premier Lazarus Mokgosi confirmed that the province was inundated with traditional leadership disputes and claims.
“After careful consideration, it became clear that the majority, if not all disputes and claims, were dealt with by the previous administration. Therefore I have instructed [Cogta] to build a database of all disputes and claims processed by the previous administration. This is to avoid this thing that when there is a new premier, someone who has lost a case then comes and wants to restart the process,” Mokgosi said.
He said the provincial government was in the process of developing a protocol on traditional leadership disputes. This as some of the cases were capable of being resolved by royal families and the house of Traditional Leaders.
New protocols
“These protocols are being developed so that the house must play a critical role in resolving all these disputes. Therefore, based on the strength of that decision, we intend to capacitate the royal families and the house. For them to handle royal disputes. So the house and the royal families will be capacitated to be able to deal with all disputes. All disputes related to traditional leadership,” Mokgosi said.
Mokgosi said the provincial house and the local house of traditional leaders need to be strengthened. This in order for them to perform these functions as assigned to them.
“They must have proper offices. And they must have adequate staff, they must also have a budget,” he said.
