IT IS easy to hide the truth amidst obfuscation, bluster and confusion. The costly upgrades to President Jacob Zuma’s Nkandla residence were first reported in the Mail and Guardian in 2009. Two years later, in December 2011, Public Protector Thuli Madonsela received the first complaint on the matter.
She confirmed to City Press in early October 2012 that she was investigating the Nkandla upgrades. She said that her office had begun preparing for an investigation after an official complaint was made a few months before. The investigation had not then gone further than "contacting the Presidency".
A month later, in November 2012, the public works minister along with police and state security ministers established a task team to probe the matters surrounding the upgrades.
The investigation commenced on November 12 2012. This report was released in December last year, after it was initially classified "top secret".
Zuma responded to Madonsela’s report, released on March 19, on Wednesday. In his three-page response, he begins by detailing the background to the upgrades and goes straight into the investigation by the security cluster ministers which emanated out of "concern" about "allegations of maladministration and excessive expenditure" on the project.
"Subsequently, the public protector engaged in an investigation into the same security upgrades," Zuma said. There was nothing subsequent about it. The government acted a year after Madonsela got her first complaint.
Zuma describes the two investigations by state institutions as an "anomaly". "In my experience in government, I have not encountered such an anomaly," the president said.
The African National Congress (ANC) has long expressed concern over two state institutions investigating the upgrades. It was fitting that the government probed the upgrades. It could not be expected to sit idly by and do nothing as costs escalated and public outrage over the project grew. But using the government’s report to escape the consequences of the public protector’s is a fallacious argument.
Zuma has said that he is now waiting for the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) to wrap up its investigation before submitting his response to Parliament. In an "embarrassing" moment, the SIU changed the status of the Nkandla probe from "complete" to "ongoing" on the same day the president was to submit his response to Parliament.
The fact that Zuma’s final response will only be made after the upcoming polls means little in the grand scheme of things. It does not spell a dramatic drop or rise in the ANC’s election performance — no one can predict that.
ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe has repeatedly made it clear that the people of South Africa care about housing, water and electricity, not Nkandla. The upgrades are an unfounded preoccupation of the media and the opposition, he insinuates. To the ANC, it warranted only a fleeting discussion by the party’s highest decision-making structure, the national executive committee, which met at the weekend. The country’s top decision makers then went off for some "fun" at the Cape Town Jazz Festival.
Let government processes unfold, Mantashe said. Processes indeed. Zuma’s modus operandi since taking office has been to lock up controversy in intricate processes, in obfuscation, bluster and confusion — from the arms deal, the spy tapes to the Marikana massacre, we have seen it all before. We have witnessed the unanswered questions piling up. Why did 44 mine workers die on that fateful day in August? More than 18 months later, we still don’t know.
But there seems to be a palpable shift this time around. A shift was last felt in a tent at the University of Limpopo at the end of 2007, when Zuma was announced the victor at the ANC’s Polokwane conference. That was an electric shift of victory and a reckoning. The current shift is characterised by a sense of defeat and frustration. Another unanswered question may just be one too many.
Leaders of organisations such as the Congress of South African Trade Unions, once characterised by a vibrant internal democracy battle, are fighting in court. One faction is trying to defend its flagrant disregard for the federation’s constitution at all costs in its attempt to push out general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi and the opposing faction places its defence of him above all else. The integrity of the Electoral Commission of South Africa, respected the world over, is now being questioned by political parties and threatened with ultimatums.
This shift embodies a yearning for accountability. Vavi may have described this shift aptly when he twisted the wording of the governing party’s acronym, ANC, from African National Congress to "Absolutely No Consequences". This yearning is unlikely to be fulfilled during his time in office.
• Marrian is political editor.
Public Protector Thuli Madonsela. Picture: MARTIN RHODES
IT IS easy to hide the truth amidst obfuscation, bluster and confusion. The costly upgrades to President Jacob Zuma’s Nkandla residence were first reported in the Mail and Guardian in 2009. Two years later, in December 2011, Public Protector Thuli Madonsela received the first complaint on the matter.
She confirmed to City Press in early October 2012 that she was investigating the Nkandla upgrades. She said that her office had begun preparing for an investigation after an official complaint was made a few months before. The investigation had not then gone further than "contacting the Presidency".
A month later, in November 2012, the public works minister along with police and state security ministers established a task team to probe the matters surrounding the upgrades.
The investigation commenced on November 12 2012. This report was released in December last year, after it was initially classified "top secret".
Zuma responded to Madonsela’s report, released on March 19, on Wednesday. In his three-page response, he begins by detailing the background to the upgrades and goes straight into the investigation by the security cluster ministers which emanated out of "concern" about "allegations of maladministration and excessive expenditure" on the project.
"Subsequently, the public protector engaged in an investigation into the same security upgrades," Zuma said. There was nothing subsequent about it. The government acted a year after Madonsela got her first complaint.
Zuma describes the two investigations by state institutions as an "anomaly". "In my experience in government, I have not encountered such an anomaly," the president said.
The African National Congress (ANC) has long expressed concern over two state institutions investigating the upgrades. It was fitting that the government probed the upgrades. It could not be expected to sit idly by and do nothing as costs escalated and public outrage over the project grew. But using the government’s report to escape the consequences of the public protector’s is a fallacious argument.
Zuma has said that he is now waiting for the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) to wrap up its investigation before submitting his response to Parliament. In an "embarrassing" moment, the SIU changed the status of the Nkandla probe from "complete" to "ongoing" on the same day the president was to submit his response to Parliament.
The fact that Zuma’s final response will only be made after the upcoming polls means little in the grand scheme of things. It does not spell a dramatic drop or rise in the ANC’s election performance — no one can predict that.
ANC secretary-general Gwede Mantashe has repeatedly made it clear that the people of South Africa care about housing, water and electricity, not Nkandla. The upgrades are an unfounded preoccupation of the media and the opposition, he insinuates. To the ANC, it warranted only a fleeting discussion by the party’s highest decision-making structure, the national executive committee, which met at the weekend. The country’s top decision makers then went off for some "fun" at the Cape Town Jazz Festival.
Let government processes unfold, Mantashe said. Processes indeed. Zuma’s modus operandi since taking office has been to lock up controversy in intricate processes, in obfuscation, bluster and confusion — from the arms deal, the spy tapes to the Marikana massacre, we have seen it all before. We have witnessed the unanswered questions piling up. Why did 44 mine workers die on that fateful day in August? More than 18 months later, we still don’t know.
But there seems to be a palpable shift this time around. A shift was last felt in a tent at the University of Limpopo at the end of 2007, when Zuma was announced the victor at the ANC’s Polokwane conference. That was an electric shift of victory and a reckoning. The current shift is characterised by a sense of defeat and frustration. Another unanswered question may just be one too many.
Leaders of organisations such as the Congress of South African Trade Unions, once characterised by a vibrant internal democracy battle, are fighting in court. One faction is trying to defend its flagrant disregard for the federation’s constitution at all costs in its attempt to push out general secretary Zwelinzima Vavi and the opposing faction places its defence of him above all else. The integrity of the Electoral Commission of South Africa, respected the world over, is now being questioned by political parties and threatened with ultimatums.
This shift embodies a yearning for accountability. Vavi may have described this shift aptly when he twisted the wording of the governing party’s acronym, ANC, from African National Congress to "Absolutely No Consequences". This yearning is unlikely to be fulfilled during his time in office.
• Marrian is political editor.
Change: -0.47%
Change: -0.57%
Change: -1.76%
Change: -0.34%
Change: 0.02%
Data supplied by Profile Data
Change: -1.49%
Change: -0.05%
Change: -0.47%
Change: 0.00%
Change: -0.22%
Data supplied by Profile Data
Change: 1.20%
Change: 1.40%
Change: 1.02%
Change: 0.59%
Change: 1.17%
Data supplied by Profile Data
Change: 0.07%
Change: -1.15%
Change: -0.07%
Change: -1.03%
Change: -0.39%
Data supplied by Profile Data