A MINISTERIAL task-team report recently exonerated President Jacob Zuma of having used state resources for security upgrades to his private estate at Nkandla in KwaZulu-Natal. The team refused to give in to the calls of those who seek to exploit the issues around Nkandla’s security upgrades to score cheap political points against Zuma and the African National Congress.
Judging by the hysterical reaction to the report, it seems some politicians, journalists and so-called independent analysts are impervious to reason when it comes to anything relating to Zuma.
But the misuse of the Nkandla security issue for political reasons is emblematic of a larger problem among South Africa’s journalists and intelligentsia. They readily jettison professional ethics and reinvent facts to suit their fancy as long as that suits their agenda of targeting and lynching a politician or leader they dislike.
They actively invent and perpetuate myths about Nkandla in pursuit of their partisan political agenda.
First, the critics have reflexively used terms such as "security upgrades" as mere slogans without any meaningful attempt to decipher their meaning. The unintended consequences of using the beguilingly simplistic phrase "security upgrades" in relation to Nkandla is that it falsely implies that these upgrades were expected to be modest improvements and not the wholesale redesign of the security system at the estate. Viewed in this way, Zuma’s critics have arrogated to themselves the right to determine what proper security upgrades should have entailed. People with no expertise in security base their jeremiad about excessive costs on nothing more than subjective lay opinion.
Second, there is the fallacy propagated by these critics that state money cannot be spent on "security upgrades" at private residences of presidents, sitting or former. Contrary to that naive assumption, mature democracies such as the US have enshrined in their laws that protection and ensuring the safety of present and former national leaders and their families is the non-delegable responsibility of the government. South Africa also accepts that security needs are catered for by the state’s security cluster.
The third myth in the controversy is the assertion that the issue is simply the spending of public money on inexplicable luxuries and is not bound up with a constitutional duty on the part of the security cluster. Pivotal questions are who is responsible for the president’s security and does the president have any veto power over the arrangements deemed necessary for his safety? If the security experts have exclusive power to make the determination, on what basis does one blame Zuma for the decisions they made on the security upgrades or configurations?
The experience of mature democracies provides the answer. Under US law, no president has veto power over arrangements deemed necessary for his safety.
The fourth myth is the assertion by some politicians that the public and the public protector are qualified to second-guess the judgment of qualified security experts on the necessity of the security upgrades. Debate must be welcomed, but it must involve an awareness of all applicable statutory and regulatory frameworks, the national executive’s appreciation of the same, as well as all surrounding circumstances.
The responsibility for state security is constitutionally committed to the executive. Against this background, we should ask whether the public protector has the constitutional authority to second-guess judgments by government ministers about the complex and subtle factors that may be considered in determining whether a kraal in a rural homestead may be considered a security feature.
And finally, it seems likely that any adverse finding by the public protector will be challenged successfully in the courts. As we debate these issues, it is important to remember the admonition of the US Supreme Court that the "judiciary is in an extremely poor position to second-guess the executive’s judgment in (the) area of national security."
The courts will be asked to determine whether the public protector has transgressed her jurisdictional boundaries under the constitution. In light of section 198 of the constitution, neither the public protector nor the courts have the constitutional authority to second-guess judgments by government ministers about the variety of complex and subtle factors that are part of the decisional calculus on national security matters.
• Buthelezi is secretary-general of the Progressive Professionals Forum.
- BDLive
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