Pay up, Mr President

AWHITEWASH — that is what Minister of Police Nathi Nhleko’s report on Nkandla is. We should not be surprised. After all, we were never going to get a fair outcome from a process driven by a man whose job is dependent on the very person he was supposed to probe — President Jacob Zuma. The president rigged the process from the start. He went against public protector Thuli Madonsela’s call that the National Treasury and the South African Police Service determine the portion of the amount he should pay for the R246-million security upgrades done at his private home in Nkandla, Kwa-Zulu-Natal.

Instead, he gave the task to Nhleko — a man who serves in the cabinet at the president’s pleasure. Nhleko was never going to bite the hand that feeds him.

But even under those circumstances, the minister outdid himself and exposed his disdain for the office of the public protector — a Chapter 9 institution whose independence and powers are guaranteed in the constitution.

Nhleko’s duty was not supposed to focus on reinventing the wheel.

Various investigations, including that of the public protector, had already determined that some of the work done at the Nkandla homestead was not of much security purpose.

In an attempt to protect his boss and plant doubts in the public’s mind about the Madonsela report, Nhleko went out of his way to start the whole process afresh — wasting more taxpayers’ money.

However, the trick has not worked. The general public has seen right through it.

Even in the ruling ANC’s ranks, the silence that has greeted Nhleko’s report is characterised by embarrassment, rather than approval.

Zuma should just do the right thing. The fact that his family unduly benefited from the construction of a visitors’ centre, an amphitheatre, chicken run, kraal and a swimming pool is indisputable.

All he has to do is to stop with the delay tactics and just pay up.