No justification for R200 million spent on Zuma's home: Irvin Jim

If the leaked Public Protector report on the upgrade to President Jacob Zuma's Nkandla home is true, then there must be accountability, Numsa general secretary Irvin Jim said.

"There is no justification for spending R200 million on the house of the president," he told delegates at Numsa's special national congress in Boksburg, on the East Rand.

"If the leaked report is true, we will demand accountability from the department of public works and the president himself."

Last month, the Mail & Guardian reported that Madonsela had found in her preliminary report that Zuma had misled Parliament, and benefited substantially from a R206 million upgrade to his homestead in Nkandla, KwaZulu-Natal.

Jim was delivering his secretariat report at the National Union of Metalworkers of SA's congress. The union would discuss whether it should support the African National Congress in next year's elections, among other things.

Jim said the union had to say no, even when it was difficult.

"As a union we cannot be founding wanting when something is definitely wrong. There is a pattern of these wrong things and we have been keeping quiet."

The union would wait for Public Protector Thuli Madonsela to release her official report on Nkandla.

Jim said Chapter Nine institutions such as the Public Protector had to keep Parliament accountable.

He said Numsa was opposed to the classification of Madonsela's report.

"This widely reported incident of Nkandla sets a terrible precedent. It comes from the office of the presidency itself, in a country where a small elite are beneficiaries of our democratic breakthrough and not the masses of our people," said Jim.