EDITORIAL: Protector stands her ground on Nkandla

THE government’s decision to abandon the urgent interdict that it sought to prevent Public Protector Thuli Madonsela from circulating her provisional report on alleged irregularities in the R206m state upgrade of President Jacob Zuma’s private estate at Nkandla is both welcome and worrying.

Welcome, because it is clearly in the public interest that the truth be revealed, and that the ramifications of the decisions that were made, and contracts that were awarded, are discussed openly. The expenditure of public money concerns all South Africans, especially when it is to the benefit of elected officials and the numbers do not seem to add up. Transparency should be the default action, to be limited only in unusual circumstances — and certainly not by executive edict.

Approaching the courts in the way that it did had all the hallmarks of being part of an elaborate foot-dragging exercise on the part of the government, designed to cover up evidence of wrongdoing and avoid political embarrassment. It is to be hoped that the decision not to pursue the interdict will avoid the kind of protracted appeals at the taxpayer’s expense that tend to characterise any court action relating even tangentially to Mr Zuma.

Worrying, because the implication of the sudden about-turn is that the original application was not motivated by concern over "state security", as claimed by the Cabinet’s security cluster, but by a cynical desire to abuse the legal system with the intention of intimidating and frustrating the office of the public protector, a constitutionally mandated institution that is a vital pillar of our democracy.

Thankfully, Ms Madonsela is made of sterner stuff; her answering affidavit was devastating in the way it dismantled the government’s specious arguments in support of censorship. How embarrassing for the government to claim that since Ms Madonsela is not a security expert, she "cannot be an arbiter on whether or not there exists a security breach from the contents of the provisional report", when the architect who oversaw the entire upgrade was appointed by Mr Zuma, not the state, and had neither security experience nor a security clearance.

So much for the hand-wringing over the supposed threat to Mr Zuma’s security.

The public protector called the government’s bluff, and, like all bullies that are not used to being stood up to, it has the temerity to cry foul. If only more of the "independent" institutions that are supposed to keep the executive in check had the backbone to stand their ground rather than rolling over meekly on command.

Parliament’s joint standing committee on intelligence is a case in point — its statement on the investigation and report submitted to it by the ministries of public works, police and state security, released yesterday, comes across as pathetically eager to please the executive and avoid asking the hard questions. It fails, for instance, to interrogate the claim that spending hundreds of millions of rand on Nkandla was justified by the high incidence of rape in the Nkandla area, and the threat of earthquakes.

In explaining the "apparent misunderstanding" in respect of the Nkandla upgrade, the committee highlights the report’s reference to "two separate properties", one belonging to Mr Zuma and the other owned by the state, as "perhaps the most significant issue".

Yet it does not attempt to explain why the alleged separation between Mr Zuma’s private property and the state-owned land was not mentioned from the outset — could it be that any distinction that has been made was concocted after the fact as part of a cover-up?

Are the committee’s members really that credulous?

The South African public certainly aren’t. They want answers, and Ms Madonsela’s courageous stand has taken us one step closer to getting them.

- BDLive