LISTEN | We lied in Zuma’s defence, Mbalula says about Nkandla ‘fire pool’ security upgrade
Remember when the governing ANC justified the R3.9m pool at former president Jacob Zuma’s Nkandla homestead as a fire pool and not a swimming pool? ANC secretary-general Fikile Mbalula now claims it was a lie to defend Zuma.
Listen to Mbalula:
At the time government justified the “fire pool” as being for security reasons, arguing it could be used to fight fires. The building cost and its justification sparked controversy.
On Sunday, while delivering a keynote address in Barberton, Mpumalanga, Mbalula conceded the party had misled parliament to defend its president at the time. He was explaining that the party endured the former president and his controversies but Zuma has lost patience with current President Cyril Ramaphosa.
“We went to parliament and opened an ad hoc committee and said a swimming pool is a fire pool. The police minister [Nathi Nhleko] was sweating, seeing that this was lies, because it is difficult to explain lies. People have lost their careers because of that thing,” he said.
In her Nkandla report former public protector Thuli Madonsela referred to the “fire pool” as a swimming pool. Then chief justice Mogoeng Mogoeng also called it a swimming pool in a Constitutional Court judgment.
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