Nkandla: ministers got key-points law 'wrong'
THE government's threat to act against the media if they published pictures of Nkandla was based on the wrong interpretation of the law, a legal expert says.
Thursday's warnings by the ministers of police and state security were followed the next day by acts of defiance by South African newspapers, which published pictures of President Jacob Zuma's rural retreat.
The ministers said that the homes of former presidents, pictures of which we publish here, are also national key points.
On Thursday, at a press briefing on a cabinet meeting, Police Minister Nathi Mthethwa said that publishing pictures of Zuma's homestead was against the law and anyone who continued to do so would face the "full might" of the law. State Security Minister Siyabonga Cwele echoed his colleague's warning.
On Friday, however, the government said the ministers' statements had been "misconstrued": the media were welcome to publish pictures of Nkandla but not allowed to "zoom in" on security features.
Media lawyer Dario Milo said the government's retreat from Mthethwa's initial statement was "a better reflection of the legal position under section 10 of the National Key Points Act of 1980".
This section of the apartheid-era law states that anyone who "furnishes in any manner whatsoever any information relating to the security measures, applicable at, or in respect of any national key point ... without being legally obliged or entitled to do so, or without the disclosure or publication of the said information being empowered by or on the authority of the minister ... shall be guilty of an offence".
Anyone found guilty in terms of the act would be liable to a fine not exceeding R10000 or three years' imprisonment.
Mthethwa declared Nkandla a national key point in 2010.
Milo said the publication of Nkandla pictures - including aerial photographs - was not a contravention of the law.
"The aerial shots don't relate to security measures at the national key point," he said.
"You will only contravene if you know that the picture you have taken [features] information related to a security measure and that the security measure is a genuine security measure in that it would undermine national security if such information about it is revealed," said Milo.
The South African National Editors' Forum vowed to continue publishing photographs of Nkandla, saying that it was in the public interest to do so.
The forum accused the ministers of "using security laws to avoid accounting to the public on the Nkandla upgrades".
Thursday's threats followed the spat between the ministers and public protector Thuli Madonsela over the release of her report on the upgrades at Nkandla.
Madonsela has said that she will release her report in January.
At the same post-cabinet media briefing in Pretoria on Thursday, Public Works Minister Thulas Nxesi revealed that the cost of upgrading Nkandla had risen to R208-million to date. Last year the government announced that the upgrades to Zuma's private home had cost R206-million.
ngalwas@sundaytimes.co.za