Nkandla has cost the ANC, says Mthembu

29 March 2016 - 02:39 By TMG Digital and Staff reporter
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The ANC caucus has lost "face" over its handling of the Nkandla saga, says incoming parliamentary chief whip Jackson Mthembu.

"We lost face and we cannot afford to lose face again," he said on the Justice Factor show on eNCA last night.

This comes after DA leader Mmusi Maimane implored Speaker Baleka Mbete to write to President Jacob Zuma to demand "without delay" that he explain why he told parliament "that his family had not benefited from the security upgrades" to his home, when it had.

Maimane said a Sunday Times "exposé confirmed what South Africans had long held: that Zuma personally benefited from the R247-million upgrades to his private Nkandla residence".

The newspaper reported from a dossier by former Department of Public Works deputy director-general Rachard Samuel, which contained invoices showing the state paid for thatching, meranti and aluminium doors and window frames, tiles, paint, plastering, airconditioning and unexplained "extras".

Mthembu told the Justice Factorthe matter would be discussed.

Samuel's dossier reveals that officials involved in the project repeatedly cautioned their political heads that Zuma would have to pay a portion of the costs.

The Sunday Times said it had also seen e-mail exchanges in which junior officials involved in the project warned their superiors that the cost of Nkandla was escalating substantially.

"This contradicts what Zuma previously articulated in parliament, where he stated he and his family had not benefited materially from the upgrades," said Maimane.

He quoted Zuma as saying: "My residence in Nkandla was paid for by the Zuma family. All the buildings and every room we use in that residence was built by ourselves as a family and not by [the] government. I have never asked [the] government to build a home for me, and it has not done so."

In her report on Nkandla, "Secure in Comfort", Public Protector Thuli Madonsela said she was "not able to establish if costs relating to his private renovations were separated from those of the state".

Madonsela told the Sunday Times she was denied access to the information in Samuel's dossier. "Had it been given to us we would have had a basis to demand confirmation of payment for the private work," she added.

Maimane said: "It is unacceptable that Zuma can be allowed to trample on the institution of parliament by lying to it and by repeatedly evading accountability to the people of South Africa.

"This information adds [to] the growing body of evidence, which points to a man who is not fit to serve as president, and I again call on the ANC to recall Zuma."

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