A family member of the Mulima Royal Council, Mr Andries Ndivhaleni Mutheiwana Mulima, and the Mulima Royal Council want their brother, Chief SA Mulima, to step down as the village’s indigenous leader, with immediate effect.

Mirror understands that the brotherly relationship between the two soured when Mutheiwana and other members of the royal family approached the commission appointed by Pres Thabo Mbeki to investigate chieftainship across the country. In their submission to Prof Moleleki’s commission, Mutheiwana and other members of the Mulima royal council claimed that Chief AS Mulima should be ousted, as he is from the junior house.

According to Mutheiwana, who also claims to be coming from the senior house, the route to Moleleki’s Commission brought bad blood between him and Chief Mulima.

In 1995, when Mutheiwana and the chief were still on good terms, his application to use the unused communal land belonging to the Department of Agriculture at Kuilfontein under the Mulima territorial authority was immediately approved. According to Mutheiwana, Chief Mulima also gave him a grazing farm, but everything changed the moment Chief Mulima learnt that Mutheiwana was actually the one spearheading the campaign to remove him from the throne. Since then, Mutheiwana has been in and out of the Mulima Traditional Court.

"I was once fined R150 by the same court after it was alleged that I had told another villager to be an impimpi (spy). Presently, at the grazing farm, the chief gave authority another villager to keep his livestock at the same grazing farm," he said.

Mutheiwana, who also wrote a letter to Prof Moleleki’s Commission to settle his dispute with his brother, Chief Mulima, said that if the traditional leader was still insisting that he should move out from both the grazing farm and the communal land, the chief himself should also step down after 21 days.

According to Mutheiwana, the present chief’s father (Mainganya Frans Mulima) was wrongly installed as a chief by Commissioner General van Berg without proper consultation with the royal council when Chief Ben Mashapa Mulima passed away in 1934. "Mulima and his father are from the junior house and, according to our culture and customs, it is only we from the senior house who should occupy the throne. While the royal family was still making a decision as to who should succeed the late Chief (Ben) whose first-born was a girl (Gumani), Commissioner Van Berg appointed Mainganyi from the junior house," he claimed.

Apart of the chieftaincy dispute, the community also does not seem to be on good terms with the chief. Members of the community, who did not want to be named, label Chief SA Mulima as a dictator who doesn´t want changes in the area.

Other community members who complained to Mirror also said that they were surprised about the chief´s actions of demarcating their communal land to make stands, which were sold for R200. "We depended on the communal lands for subsistence. We used to plant things to sustain us," said one of the community members who has also been affected.

Members of the Mulima Sanco, who also feared to reveal their identity, confirmed that the community was experiencing a lot of differences with the chief. They also revealed that the problem is that the chief only concentrates on money. They added that the chief once wrote them a letter, saying that Sanco should stop operating.

"The tension rose when people demanded residential confirmation letters to renew their bank accounts. The chief told people that the letters would only be issued at R50 a letter. There was also no proper consultation with Sanco when communal lands that belonged to community members were demarcated," they said.

Mirror visited the Mulima Tribal Office in an effort for the Chief Mulima to respond to the allegations, but he refused to comment. He only sent one of his clerks, Mr Raswiswi, to convey a message, saying that the chief could not talk to the media and that if there was a problem, it would be resolved at the tribal kraal (Khoroni).