SOUTH AFRICA: Funds no longer just for poor white girls

02 August 2009

A multimillion-rand educational trust bequeathed by the industrialist and politician Sir Charles George Smith - for the benefit of "European girls born of British-South African or Dutch-South African parents" - will now benefit young women of all races, writes Tania Broughton for The Mercury. This is after the University of KwaZulu-Natal, which manages the trust, applied successfully to the High Court to amend Sir Charles' will, saying the bequest was an "embarrassment" and could expose it to Equality Court proceedings.

Sir Charles, founder of CG Smith, a leader in South Africa's sugar industry, and a senator in the Union government, died in 1941, bequeathing some of his estate to the then-Council of the Natal University College, to be held in an educational trust named after his mother, Emma Smith. Three years ago, its assets were valued at R27 million (US$3.5 million) and the fund had distributed more than R4-million.

High Court Judge Chris Nicholson said that equality of race was so fundamental, "in a sense it trumps all other principles". He ordered the deletion of any reference to European, British and Dutch.
Full report on the Independent Online site

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