Cabinet to decide on the upgrades
NKANDLA: COMMITTEE ABSOLVES THE PRESIDENT Rejects public protector’s demand for Zuma to repay.
In its final report, Parliament’s ad hoc committee on the Nkandla controversy yesterday absolved President Jacob Zuma of wrongdoing and asked him to act against officials who allowed the abuse of state funds to refurbish his homestead.
It also instructed cabinet to determine which parts of the R246 million project constituted genuine security upgrades. This must be done within three months and with the help of the state security services.
The committee rejected Public Protector Thuli Madonsela’s conclusion the president was unduly enriched because some of the improvements, including a swimming pool, cattle kraal and chicken run, did not pertain to security and that he should refund the state for these.
Instead it accepted a parliamentary legal adviser’s view that this finding was “premature” as Madonsela was not a security expert. The report faults her for arriving at the finding by checking what was constructed at Zuma’s home in KwaZulu-Natal against a list of security requirements compiled by the police.
This was flawed as, according to a cabinet memorandum from 2003, the requirements should have been determined with input from the State Security Agency.
Stressing that Zuma did not request the security upgrade, the report says: “The committee recommends the matter of what constitutes security and non-security be referred back to cabinet.”
It calls on Zuma to consider whether members of government ignored the cabinet memorandum and “if necessary take the appropriate action” against them as well as “members of the executive who did not act according to the prescripts of the Public Finance Management Act”.
The report, drafted by ANC MPs after the opposition withdrew in protest, also rejects Madonsela’s findings that the president breached the executive ethics code by failing to prevent the waste of state funds. It cites the Western Cape High Court judgment last month in which Judge Ashton Schippers ruled that fi ndings by the public protector are not binding.
Committee chairperson Cedric Frolick also denied charges that the ruling party was effectively reviewing Madonsela’s report. “We did not overturn anything,” he said. “We applied the relevant legislation and the laws ... If there is anyone that has information that the president has acted in a wrongful or corrupt way, that information must be handed over to the authorities.” –