Complaint lodged over public funding of Makeba dispute

Friday marked the 10th anniversary of the death of the legendary Miriam Makeba – civil rights activist and the first African music star to become a global celebrity – but her disputed estate has still not been wound up, notes City Press. It says there has been an escalation in the legal battle between Makeba’s grandchildren Zenzi and Lumumba Lee, who established the Miriam Makeba Foundation, and two of the trustees of the ZM Makeba Trust that Makeba herself set up to protect her legacy, alongside Siyandisa Music, to control her copyright. Now a complaint lodged with the Public Protector by one of the trustees is accusing the Department of Arts and Culture of fuelling the dispute by unlawfully funding the grandchildren’s private legal actions with public money. City Press says it has seen invoices, payment stubs and acknowledgements of payment to the value of almost R3m to top private law firms since 2009 to represent the Lees in their war against their grandmother’s trust, of which they are also trustees. Arts and Culture Minister Nathi Mthethwa has claimed that the spend is enabled under the apartheid-era Culture Promotion Act. But the complaint, by multi-jurisdictional copyright lawyer and forensics expert and trustee Graeme Gilfillan, with supporting legal work by attorney Thokozani Mthembu, claims it is unlawful, irregular and wasteful under the Act for the state to pay private attorneys for a private matter.