'Fall guys' to face Nkandla music

The saga of the refurbishing of President Jacob Zuma's Nkandla home with taxpayers' money enters a new chapter today as disciplinary hearings against 10 Department of Public Works officials begin in Durban.

The Sunday Times revealed yesterday that millions more are to be spent on security and infrastructure upgrades at the president's KwaZulu-Natal homestead.

• Presidency denies renovations to NkandlaThe Presidency has denied that renovations at the expense of taxpayers are being undertaken at President Jacob Zuma’s private homestead in Nkandla.

The Presidency has denied the Sunday Times allegations.

The Pietermaritzburg High Court has ruled that the disciplinary hearings should be open to the media.

The application was brought by The Times' owner, Times Media, Media24 and the Mail & Guardian.

Judge Piet Koen said in his ruling last year that the public nature of the Nkandla upgrading demanded that citizens have access to all the facts so that they could make informed choices.

Public Works officials have been described as the "scapegoats" and "fall guys" in the allocation of blame for the R246-million of public money spent on the Nkandla upgrading.

Zuma was censured by the Constitutional Court and ordered to pay back R7.8-million.

Sibusiso Chonco, deputy director for utilisations and contracts in the Durban office of the Department of Public Works, is the first person to face action in respect of the upgrading. His disciplinary hearing is set for today and tomorrow; the hearings of other officials will be next month.

Twelve officials were originally charged for their role in the awarding of the contract to architect Minenhle Makhanya, who is being sued in the High Court for R155-million.

One official, identified as director of projects, Itumeleng Molosi, pleaded guilty last year. He was suspended without pay for three months.

Public Works chief director of legal services Barnie Ntlou confirmed that Molosi had pleaded guilty. Molosi was given a "final written warning and [told] never to be involved in any form of tender process until he has undergone training on procurement".

A second official, Belinda Mlota, died in a car crash.

Ntlou said the disciplinary hearings would start today.

"The officials are broadly charged with having not followed procurement processes in the appointment of contractors in the upgrading of the president's Nkandla homestead.

"We currently have 10 officials [facing] a full-blown disciplinary process," he said.

"We are likely to remain with nine officials facing a disciplinary process as one official is to retire by the end of this month,'' said Ntlou.

He said the officials had all been part of the bid adjudication committee that appointed Makhanya as architect.

"They did not follow the processes to appoint the contractor," he alleged.

But the Public Servants' Association, which is defending the 10 officials, said it was "strange" that the arraigned officials would commit offences when their track records were "spotless".

The association's KwaZulu-Natal manager, Claude Naicker, said: "They have been on the bid evaluation committee for a number of years, performing these duties, not only on Nkandla but on every other project involving the department.

''None of these employees has been charged previously for any other misconduct. Why on this project were people charged?"