SA party to intervene in suit on Zuma home report

South African President Jacob Zuma. South Africa’s biggest opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, said it will intervene following the news that the Cabinet Security Cluster intends to take a report on extravagant renovations to the president’s home for a judicial review. AFP PHOTO

What you need to know:

  • The Public Protector claims that President Jacob Zuma’s family unduly benefited from the project and wants Zuma to pay part of the money spent on the project, a request rejected by Zuma.

CAPE TOWN, Friday

South Africa’s biggest opposition party, the Democratic Alliance, said it will intervene following the news that the Cabinet Security Cluster intends to take a report on the president’s home for a judicial review.

“This decision by the Security Cluster is a transparent case of the executive trying to interfere with the independence and impartiality of a Chapter Nine institution (the Public Protector’s Office),” said James Selfe, chairman of the DA Federal Executive.

The Security Cluster had said earlier on Thursday that it will refer Public Protector Thuli Madonsela’s report on the Nkandla scandal to the High Court for review of its inaccuracies.

“The security cluster ministers have resolved to take the Public Protector’s report on the security upgrades installed in the private residence of the President (‘the Nkandla report’) on a judicial review by the High Court,” government spokeswoman Phumla Williams said.

Mandonsela issued the report on March 19 on the final findings into the security upgrades of Jacob Zuma’s private home in Nkandla, KwaZulu-Natal Province, a project that allegedly cost 245 million rand (about 23 million US dollars) in public funds.

'IRRATIONAL' FINDINGS

The Public Protector claims that President Jacob Zuma’s family unduly benefited from the project and wants Zuma to pay part of the money spent on the project, a request rejected by Zuma.

“It is the ministers’ view that the Public Protector’s report and the investigation she conducted trespass on the separation of powers doctrine and offend against section 198(d) of the Constitution which vests national security in Parliament and National Executive,” Williams said in a statement.

“The grounds of the review will be fully canvassed in the review papers,” she said.

It is also the ministers’ view that some of the findings and remedial action proposed by the Public Protector in her report are irrational, contradictory and are informed by material errors of law, said Williams.

In response to the government move, the DA has already begun consulting its lawyers with the view of joining as an intervening party, Selfe said.

“The Constitution requires organs of State to assist and protect the Public Protector for the independent impartiality, dignity and effectiveness of the Constitution. In the light of the aforegoing the threatened review application is inconsistent with the Constitutional imperatives,” Selfe said.

INACCURACIES

He said the DA believes that it is part of a greater plan to try and block the reappointment of an ad hoc committee to consider this matter on the grounds of it being sub judice.

To the extent that there are any inaccuracies in the report, a parliamentary ad hoc committee is the correct body to consider such arguments, Selfe said.

The committee, he said, will be able to listen to input from the Security Cluster as well as seek answers to questions that were not fully answered by the report.

The DA will be considering the application by the Ministers as soon as it is available and make a decision on what steps to take, Selfe said.

“We will not hesitate to approach a court to become an intervening party if needs be.”

A Parliament ad hoc committee set up to consider submissions by Zuma on the Public Protector’s Nkandla report was dissolved last month before the May 7 general elections on the grounds that there was not enough time for it to do justice to the task at hand.

The matter has been left for the fifth Parliament, which will be sworn in later this month.