Cape Town - Justice Minister Jeff Radebe says he has not received the Public Protector’s provisional report into the R206 million taxpayer-funded upgrade of President Jacob Zuma’s rural homestead at Nkandla.
“The Public Protector, contrary to media reports, has never given me a copy,” Rabebe said on Sunday.
He heads the security ministerial cluster to which the Public Protector said copies were given on Friday.
Instead, during Sunday’s security ministerial cluster briefing on the fight against crime and related matters, it emerged the draft report had gone to the ministries of police, state security and defence, which are part of the security cluster, and public works, in the economic cluster.
Some respondents and complainants, among them DA parliamentary leader Lindiwe Mazibuko, will have to go to the Public Protector’s offices in Pretoria or Cape Town to view the provisional report in the presence of the investigation team “due to security reasons”, the Public Protector’s office said on Friday.
President Jacob Zuma's home in Nkandla File photo: Doctor Ngcobo
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It could take a month before the final Nkandla report is made public.
Mazibuko expressed her concern over making the draft report available to security cluster ministers for their input on whether Zuma’s security would be compromised.
Mazibuko said she would write to Public Protector Thuli Madonsela to find out what she would do if the ministers classified her report, as has happened with the public works task team report into Nkandla.
When that report landed in Parliament in July, it was referred not to the public works portfolio committee, but the joint standing committee on intelligence, which sits behind closed doors.
In the Western Cape High Court in February next year, the DA will seek to have the public works report made public.
However, Madonsela said she would ensure the report was published, according to media reports on Sunday.
She was quoted as saying: “I cannot comment on the contents of the report... But there’s a real chance that we may come out and say things aren’t really as bad as they seem.”
“The Public Protector accounts to the National Assembly so all reports can be submitted there,” he said, adding the president also accounted to Parliament, and “more specifically to the National Assembly”.
ANC chief whip Stone Sizani said last week that Parliament was the correct port of call after Madonsela expressed concern it was unclear who the correct authority to take action was, if necessary, against a president following Public Protector findings.
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