"Cabinet has taken a resolution that senior government officials and employees of Ithala and public office bearers should not have access to loans from Ithala," KwaZulu-Natal MEC for economic development and tourism Mike Mabuyakhulu said in Durban today.

Mabuyakhulu said the government had introduced the related-party policy, which would regulate the lending practice to entities or people who were in positions of power or had indirect influence within the institution on their spouses.

"This included any member of the national Parliament and provincial legislature, national ministers, local government and public office bearers and members of the board," Mabuyakhulu said.

Existing Ithala clients who would be affected by the new policy would have until the end of March to relocate their loans to other financial institutions.

In 2006 it was reported that May Mashego-Mkhize, the wife of the then minister of economic development who is now Premier Dr Zweli Mkhize, received a loan of R13 million for farming purposes.

It was reported that her partners in the venture were Pretty Mbanjwa and Ntombi Shabalala, the wives of former KwaZulu-Natal director general Dr Kwazi Mbanjwa and Ithala's sitting chief executive officer Sipho Shabalala.

Loans were also reportedly granted to various top Ithala executives, including former Ithala chief executive officer Sipho Nyembezi, who earned R2,45m a year.

Mabuyakhulu said the government wanted to make sure that Ithala did not continue to receive negative media publicity because of the way it conducted business.

"At the centre of negative publicity [were] accusation that there were some who had received financial assistance from Ithala under allegedly questionable circumstances," he said.

The new policy would be implemented from 1 December.

In a separate development, Mabuyakhulu announced that the long-awaited Richard's Bay Industrial Development Zone (IDZ) had finally received an operators' permit from the national department of trade and industry.

"We have no doubt that we will see a lot of companies investing in the IDZ, which will boost the economy of the province," he said.

The IDZ was established by the South African government to boost the economy especially in the Richard's Bay area.

He also announced that the province had appoint a broad-based black economic advisory council.

The council would, among other things, make sure that the broad-based black economic empowerment targets for the province were achieved.

The province's flagship project Dube Tradeport, which incorporated the new international airport, had created 58,972 jobs countrywide with 48,295 of these in KwaZulu-Natal.