Zuma must pay costs

THE direct monetary cost of Nkandla to the fiscus is already massive. The indirect cost to the country is truly incalculable.

It is shocking to note how openly contemptuous President Zuma and the ANC are of South African taxpayers.

Congress of the People (Cope) believes that the president, in answering a supplementary question on Nkandla, misled parliament. That is our impression.

Cope will request a copy of Hansard to study the president’s exact words in one of the answers. If we heard him correctly, he is defiantly maintaining that he acted on the public protector’s recommendation when he requested the police minister to make a cost determination. The public protector has roundly rejected this baseless assumption by the president.

If Hansard supports our contention that he deliberately misled Parliament, in that he continued knowingly to fabricate a rationale for his unacceptable action, he will have created a most grievous transaction.

He will have to resign because that is the consequence of deliberately misleading Parliament. If he fails to do so, Cope will move to impeach him on grounds of having wilfully and deliberately misled Parliament.

Meanwhile, as there is no end to the merry-go-round in the Nkandla saga, the ANC is very comfortable with allowing the cost to escalate in all directions. With the EFF taking Zuma to court, the ANC will consequently seek to burden taxpayers with the cost of Zuma’s defence.

We will insist President Zuma must use his own money to defend himself.