Following this weekend’s media reports, Mvezo Chief Mandla Mandela, who has been accused of attempting to hijack his grandfather’s legacy, could not be contacted.

The Sunday Times has reported that Mandla also allegedly destroyed the crumbling foundations of Mandela’s original homestead to build his own home.

According to the report members of the Nelson Mandela Museum, a national heritage organisation that oversees the Nobel Peace laureate’s legacy projects in Mthatha and Qunu, accused Mandla of trying to strong-arm the National Lottery Board into giving him an R8 million grant, ostensibly to extend the museum, without consulting or getting approval from the museum board.

They also accuse him of banning them from the historic Mandela museum landmark in Madiba’s birthplace, Mvezo, in the Eastern Cape.

And they believe he had let the landmark – a bamboo, concrete and steel structure bearing portraits of Madiba – go to ruin, causing the museum board to take the site off its Mandela Heritage map.

The historic landmark at the centre of the fight between Mandla and the museum’s management and board is an open-air museum, unveiled 10 years ago on the 10th anniversary of Mandela’s release from prison.

The heated confrontation has now seen Mandla banning the museum’s staff and management from other villages and sites associated with Mandela’s youth, sites the national heritage organisation wants to include on the Mandela Heritage map.

According to the report Mandla reprimanded Chief Zanomthetho Mtirara, who oversees Mqhekezweni, a remote village where Mandela spent his youth, for allowing museum staff into the village to restore and preserve the mud hut in which Mandela once lived.

It was reported on Sunday that the Nelson Mandela Museum has now raised concerns about an application for a R8 million grant from the National Lottery Board for a second phase of the Mvezo open-air museum, an apparent legacy project about which they have not been consulted , nor approved.

At Nelson Mandela’s 92nd birthday celebrations in the village last Sunday, Mandla told an estimated 600 villagers and guests, including President Jacob Zuma and the Minister of Arts and Culture, Lulu Xingwana, that he had secured the R8 million, something he ought not to be able to do as he is not a charity.

Asked by the Sunday Times, Mandla said the Arts and Culture Ministry had secured the grant from the lottery board for the project in Mvezo.

Mandla denied that he, or his Mvezo Trust, had ever made an application.

Not so, said a spokesperson for the minister, Mack Lewele.

“The department has never applied to the (National Lottery Board) on behalf of the museum for funding.

“With regard to the rest of the issues concerning the museum, these matters have been brought to the minister’s attention … she is investigating them and will pronounce on them in due course.”

He added: “Just to confirm again, neither the minister nor the ministry has applied to the (National Lottery Board).”

It was reported that National Lottery Board spokesperson Sershan Naidoo confirmed that an application for an R8m grant had been made to the arts, culture and national heritage sector of the National Lottery Distribution Trust Fund.

“(But) we are not in a position to comment further on the application since the matter is still under discussion,” he said.

Several senior managers at the Nelson Mandela Museum’s head office in Mthatha questioned the motives behind Mandla’s plans for the R8 million, saying the open-air museum in Mvezo had been removed from the Mandela Heritage map.

The Nelson Mandela Museum’s website says the landmark “is not currently operated by the (Nelson Mandela) Museum”.

Mandla insisted that Xingwana’s office had obtained the grant from the lottery board.

“We are waiting for the ministry to give us details about the project … I believe they have the R8m from (the) national lottery,” Mandla said.

“We have not yet entered into discussions about what the ministry plans to do with the money. We as the residents of Mvezo are just beneficiaries of this museum that will be built.
“But we have not been given a way forward or details about the project,” he said.

Nelson Mandela Museum chief executive Khwezi ka Mpumlwana declined to discuss the grant application and his organisation’s dispute with Mandla over the Mvezo site, or to respond to questions he had asked be e- mailed to him.

He would only say: “The Ministry of Arts and Culture has ultimate oversight of the museum.”

Source: Sunday Times