Mandla disgrace to Mandela legacy

Mandla allegedly destroyed the crumbling foundations of Mandela's original homestead to erect his own home and at least six mud huts.

He ignored the museum's last-ditch attempts to preserve the site, located below the open-air museum, by using materials other than those from which the original structures had been built.

SHOOT: One word - greed.

clipped from www.timeslive.co.za Mandla Mandela, former president Nelson Mandela's grandson, has been accused of attempting to hijack Madiba's legacy. Members of the Nelson Mandela Museum, a national heritage organisation that oversees the Nobel peace laureate's legacy projects in Mthatha and Qunu, have 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 has 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. When questioned by the Sunday Times yesterday, Mandla said the Arts and Culture Ministry had secured the grant from the lottery board for the project in Mvezo.