South Africa

South Africa

Nkandla: Jacob Zuma’s (over-priced) house is not in order

Nkandla: Jacob Zuma’s (over-priced) house is not in order

The upgrades to President Jacob Zuma's private Nkandla residence were grossly over-priced and shoddy, likely costing the taxpayer more as they're completed. That's the general view of members of Parliament who visited Nkandla on Wednesday. The ANC and opposition parties will clash on who should be held responsible – Zuma or those working on the project, but the case will likely end up in court soon. By GREG NICOLSON.

On a rainy Wednesday in Nkandla, the ANC’s chairperson of the ad hoc committee formed to look into Police Minister Nkosinathi Nhleko’s report on Nkandla, Cedric Frolick, said MPs started in the president’s visitors centre. Designed to welcome visiting dignitaries and foreign leaders, Frolick said it was a “very, very basic facility”, a modest office of the president. The MPs were ready to see grandeur on the scale of the amount spent, but were shocked. Frolick said the area was small and had plastic chairs.

Then the MPs went to see the SAPS surveillance control room. Monitoring screens and other equipment had not been attached and the officers said they were making “contingency plans”. The intention for the control room clearly had not been met, and getting it up to scratch will require extra money. Then went to the amphitheatre – described as a retention wall for security – which was small compared to similar structures in the area, said Frolick.

Then they saw the pool. “For me a pool is a pool. It’s a water resource that can be used for different purposes and in the absence of other sources of water that is the only source that is there,” Frolick explained. The cattle kraal and culvert were “nothing flashy, nothing extraordinary”. The SANDF-run clinic, outside Zuma’s residence, was not functional, since the controversy over Nkandla begun, but features shoddy workmanship. Then the MPs saw the 21 chalets designed to host security personnel. “That is where we want to pursue the matter further,” said Frolick, because a fortune was spent on the accommodation, yet the construction is poor quality and is hardly ever used.

For Frolick, whose comments will likely reflect the ANC line on the police minister’s report, the visit was worth it. It opens the conversation on how policy failures allowed shoddy workmanship, inflated prices, and scope creep at a huge cost to the taxpayer and how they can be rectified. It allows the ad hoc committee to question department of public works officials, contractors and the SAPS and hold them accountable. Opposition parties agree the visit highlights just how little the state got for its money, but they also want Zuma to be held accountable.

In a statement issued after the visit, Democratic Alliance leader Mmusi Maimane said it was clear the upgrades far exceed the requirements to secure a president’s private home. “Everything we have seen today reinforces our stance that President Zuma clearly unduly benefited as the public protector found,” said Maimane. He called for Nhleko’s report, which classifies the kraal, chicken run, swimming pool, amphitheatre and visitor’s centre as security features, to be rejected.

Based on what we have seen today it is clear that the minister began with this biased conclusion as his point of departure and to this end set out to create a case in support of it,” he said. “Our visit made it clear that the scope of the project was never to secure the president’s private residence, but to upgrade it to the status of a presidential residence at a grossly inflated cost,” Maimane added. He supported the public protector’s report and reiterated Zuma should be held accountable for the costs. “The only plausible assumption is that President Zuma misused the power of his office to expand the scope of the project for his personal benefit.”

Maimane had said he would tweet from the event but MPs’ phones were taken before they entered Zuma’s residence.

It was interesting going there and seeing it and I’m very glad we did,” said DA MP Glynnis Breytenbach over the phone. However, they now have more questions than answers. After seeing the controversial security features, Breytenbach said they were clearly never intended for protecting the president, but some may now double as security features.

Steven Swart from the ACDP agreed. “More questions have been raised rather than answered by going there.” He said it was like a jigsaw puzzle without the guiding picture, with so many people involved in the construction. “I don’t think the state has received due money for what they’ve spent,” said Swart, explaining that while the MPs did not go beyond the security tour into Zuma’s home, he saw tiles already lifting, cracks in the walls, and security features that still haven’t been finished, raising the question of liability from the department of public works, lead architect and contractors. “Most of us in the opposition are still firmly in the view that the police’s report is a whitewash and unacceptable,” he said, adding that Zuma should be held liable to pay a portion of the expenses.

Narend Singh from IFP noticed the disconnect between the money spent and the upgrades, “There’s nothing luxurious about what I saw.” The visitors centre was unfit to host dignitaries or foreign presidents, its supposed use; cameras were not working and there were no security monitoring systems for the area, he explained. “Going there was really an eye opener for all of us… One cannot understand how the department of public works could have been negligent to that extent.” Like many of the other MPs, he was also critical of the 21 units built at the cost of R135 million to house security from the SANDF and SAPS where the workmanship was shoddy and the accommodation “not optimally being used”.

My view is that this oversight [visit] today gave me an opportunity to see further corruption that took place in that place. There is a huge corruption, people made money in that place,” said Agang SA’s Andries Tlouamma. “They are not at all security features… What I saw there is just a joke,” he said. After seeing the controversial security features, Tlouamma felt more certain the government was trying to explain away the benefits Zuma received. “The biggest beneficiary is our president… Everyone who has stolen money there – our president was involved.”

Corne Mulder from Freedom Front Plus said after the visit it was quite clear the Nkandla upgrades were a front for contractors to hugely inflate costs. The workmanship was “quite terrible as far as I’m concerned”, said Mulder, and with work still to be done the costs will only increase. “It seems that it just goes on and on.” The “fire pool”, which is in the shape of a boat, is a recreational area that a PR exercise has found a use for as a security feature, a symbol of the upgrade that was not trying to improve security but improve the president’s home at the taxpayer’s expense, he said.

While most opposition parties attended, Cope and the Economic Freedom Fighters are not taking part in any of the ad hoc committee proceedings, claiming it’s a waste of money.

The media was not allowed into Zuma’s residence on Wednesday after Frolick this week said the ad hoc committee had no legal authority to make such a decision. The South African National Editors Forum expressed shock at the lack of effort by the committee to facilitate media access. In response, the ANC chief whip’s office said, “Such authority resides elsewhere and definitely not with the speaker or the chairperson of the ad hoc committee.” In the end, the media were allowed to view the upgrades that are not situated on Zuma’s property, particularly the R135 million residences for security personal.

Images posted from the 21 chalets, built for R6 million each, for security suggest they are potentially the most overpriced real estate in the country. They showed plumbing work unfinished, a goat milling in a dirty corner, and, while most of the residences are not being used, thin mattresses on the ground for security to sleep in an unfurnished residence. Nhleko has said it’s still unclear who authorised the accommodation and it seems no one is taking responsibility to complete it.

While on an alternative inspection in Nkandla, looking at conditions for the public, the DA joined the media. The ANC claimed the party was grandstanding and interrupting the journalists’ tour while the DA said they were visiting upgrades that came at the public expense, not within the president’s property, and claimed on social media a group of ANC members who gathered in Nkandla were yelling insults.

The MPs visit to Nkandla was directly related to the work of the ad hoc committee considering Nhleko’s report. On Thursday, committee members will discuss their findings against the minister’s report before meeting on Friday to evaluate the work done thus far and chart a way forward. Some opposition MPs said the ad hoc committee will be a whitewash targeting officials rather than politicians, as has been the case in other scandals.

A key point of Nhleko’s report and indicator of who will likely take the blame from this committee is his finding that R135 million of the R250 million spent on Nkandla went towards the 21 chalets for security. But even that figure is in dispute, with the public protector putting the cost of the chalets at R17.5 million and the Special Investigations Unit claiming they cost R23.4 million; Frolick said the committee will consider the different claims.

From different MPs at Wednesday’s visit, the conclusion seems unanimous that the state overpaid for shoddy work. But this committee will likely be overshadowed by the almost certain court case to come.

The public protector’s report looms large over the Nkandla issue. After a year of questioning Thuli Madonsela’s powers, Zuma’s failure to implement her recommendations will likely end up in court, unless the executive or ad hoc committee make an unexpected move. As University of Cape Town Professor in Constitutional Governance, Pierre de Vos, wrote recently, “The only relevant decision is the one taken by the president not to take advice from the Treasury as to the amount to be paid back but rather to ignore the public protector’s findings and to ask the minister of police to review these findings. Was this decision rational and hence are there cogent reasons for this decision?” DM

Photo of 21 security chalets in Nkandla by Marianne Thamm.

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