Johannesburg: The former purse-holder for South Africa’s Zulu king has told how the monarch’s endless spending on his six wives, 27 children and six palaces left him feeling he would “die from stress”. According to media reports, Lucas Buthelezi, the finance director of King Goodwill Zwelithini’s taxpayer-funded trust, said that “whatever” the powerful monarch asked for he got.

Spending quickly ran out of control when he demanded a £6,000 (Dh33,600) cutlery set and a new television for each of his wives — because one did not have one. The 66-year-old, who inherited the leadership of South Africa’s largest ethnic group in the 1970s and is known for his lavish spending, is also said to have given Buthelezi instructions for a £200,000 wedding to his sixth wife, saying that it should be “big” to coincide with his birthday.

Buthelezi was appointed on a five-year contract but lasted only nine months in the job.

He claims he was sacked from managing the 22 million rand (Dh6.58 million £1.1 million) trust, part of a total R54m budget allocated to the king by provincial government, because he balked at the “expensive” requests.

“I was undermined. Every time I pointed out that something should not be coming out of our budget but from the department, or every time I queried non-budgetary items, I would be told to just do it,” he told the Mercury newspaper.

On one occasion, the king telephoned him personally from Cape Town saying he wanted cutlery and crockery for R50,000, he alleged.

“I said OK because I was still trying to do my job. When the invoice arrived it was for R120,000,” he said.

“Basically, whatever he asked for he got.”

Buthelezi, who was sacked after nine months and is seeking to be paid for the remainder of his five-year contract at an employment tribunal, claims he was told each queen had to be given the same and since one needed a new television set, he should buy one for each.

The “last straw”, he said, came when he challenged the spending on the latest royal wedding.

“He wanted R4 million. It was not in the budget,” he said.

“I was told if I did not find it, I should go. “I could take no more. My heart was beating so fast I thought I would die from stress.”

Other media reports claimed that earlier the same month the king ordered seven Mercedes Benz E-class sedans, collectively worth nearly R5 million, for his six wives — with the extra one to be kept as “backup”.

Nhlanhla Mtaka, a spokesman for the king, declined to comment.

Opposition parties have previously accused the king, his wives and children of lavish spending.

In 2012, he requested that the government spend £450,000 on a palace for his latest wife so that she did not have to share with any of his other spouses.

King Goodwill is no stranger to controversy.

In April, he was accused of sparking a wave of xenophobic violence that claimed at least seven lives when he said in a public speech that foreigners were “lice” who should “pack their bags and go”.