PRESIDENT Jacob Zuma appears to be compounding the controversy surrounding the taxpayer-funded R246m security upgrade to his private Nkandla residence by saying he will wait for the Special Investigating Unit (SIU) report before fully articulating his response to the public protector’s report.
Mr Zuma has technically met the 14-day deadline stipulated in the Executive Members Ethics Act by on Wednesday submitting to Parliament a partial response to Public Protector Thuli Madonsela’s report that found he had benefited from the upgrades.
Shortly after he had submitted his response, the SIU website’s status on the Nkandla investigation was changed from "completed" to "ongoing".
SIU head Vas Soni said on Wednesday night the website debacle was a "matter of grave embarrassment. I don’t know who would have put that up and on what basis."
The team working on the Nkandla matter is in Durban at present. Mr Soni said he would institute an investigation into the changes to the website and would issue a statement on Thursday.
Reacting to questions about possible manipulation of state agencies, Mr Soni said there had been no suggestion by the SIU that the probe would be finalised at this stage.
Earlier this month, he had reportedly said that the probe would be concluded by the first week of next month.
Yesterday, he said the investigation was likely to be concluded by the beginning of June, after the May 7 election.
Four processes had to be carried out. The first was to finalise evidence to send to the director-general of the Department of Public Works, for it to take action against employees implicated.
The second was to collect evidence to submit to the National Prosecuting Authority if crimes had been committed.
The third was to collect evidence to take the matter to the high court to claim back money from consultants the Department of Public Works had hired for the upgrades.
Then the report would need to be submitted to the president. Each step would take about 10 days, Mr Soni said.
A statement from the Presidency yesterday referred to three state agency investigations into the Nkandla issue.
Mr Zuma would give "full and proper consideration to all the matters before him and upon receipt of the SIU report will provide Parliament with a further report on the decisive executive intervention that he would consider to be appropriate".
"The president remains concerned about the allegations of maladministration and impropriety around procurement in the Nkandla project, in particular the allegations around cost inflation," Presidency spokesman Mac Maharaj said in the statement.
In December, the Cabinet’s security cluster of ministers released its previously classified report that exonerated Mr Zuma and all Cabinet members from any wrongdoing.
It was only after that report was released that Mr Zuma signed a proclamation empowering the SIU to investigate the procurement processes used during the Nkandla project.
The release of the public protector’s report two weeks ago, which found that Mr Zuma had "unduly benefited" from what were supposed to be security upgrades to his private home, prompted the Democratic Alliance (DA) to lodge a motion of impeachment against Mr Zuma on the basis that he had misled Parliament.
DA parliamentary leader Lindiwe Mazibuko wrote to speaker Max Sisulu requesting that he set up an ad hoc committee to consider an impeachment motion based on the public protector’s findings.
Mr Sisulu replied that he would consider her request.
The National Assembly and the National Council of Provinces (NCOP) are in recess in preparation for the elections.
However, the National Assembly may be recalled for one day this month to consider two bills, the Women’s Empowerment and Gender Equality Bill and the National Environmental Management Act Amendment Bill, which have been rejected by the NCOP.
DA chief whip Watty Watson said now that Mr Zuma’s responses had arrived in Parliament, there would be some movement towards resolving the issue before the elections.
"If I were the ANC, I would want this whole thing put to bed before the next Parliament forms, otherwise the president-elect will have a sword of Damocles hanging over his head on the impeachment process," Mr Watson said.
Moloto Mothapo, spokesman for ANC chief whip Stone Sizane, said if the National Assembly were to be recalled it would only be to consider the two bills.
"If Parliament reconvenes to consider the bills, it won’t be about anything else," he said.
Political analyst Judith February said it appeared that the ANC was trying to give the public protector’s report, and the Cabinet and SIU investigations, equal weight and that this was wrong.
The public protector was charged in terms of the constitution and relevant laws to investigate maladministration and the executive process that led to it, Ms February said.
"The SIU investigates the procurement process such as who bought what, for how much and if they were overcharged," she said.
If Parliament did not debate or take some form of action over the public protector’s report, and decided it needed to wait for the SIU report, it would crimp its credibility for acting in the interests of all South Africans, Ms February said.
- BDlive
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