South Africa

South Africa

Parliamentary Diary: Toothless Nkandla ad-hoc committee won’t bite

Parliamentary Diary: Toothless Nkandla ad-hoc committee won’t bite

Fresh from its field trip to Nkandla, and its refusal to allow the public protector to appear before it, Parliament’s ad-hoc committee on Nkandla sat down on Tuesday to consider its draft report. And then it sat down on Wednesday to consider its draft report. Two exceptionally tedious days later, with a Friday deadline looming, the committee still hadn’t been able to agree on its findings and recommendations. By REBECCA DAVIS.

Nkandla ad-hoc committee chairman Cedric Frolick opened Wednesday’s meeting in an unusually jovial mood, and brought it to a close in an unusually angry mood. The ANC’s Frolick was visibly unimpressed that opposition MPs were demanding more time in which to consider what the committee’s findings and recommendations, in its final report, should be.

The title of the report in its current form is bleakly hilarious:

Draft Report of the Ad Hoc Committee to consider the report of the Minister of Police in reply to recommendations in the report of the Ad Hoc Committee to consider the report by the President regarding security upgrades at the Nkandla Private Residence of the President.

What a mouthful – and yet the actual content of the report is minimal. The original version, distributed to committee members and journalists on Tuesday, consisted of 15 pages summarising everything the committee has done since being established on June 2, 2015.

It’s not a lot. Opposition parties argued in favour of the committee calling everyone from the architect responsible for the upgrades, to the public protector herself, to appear before it. ANC MPs, who hold the majority on this committee, shot that all down. The only figures permitted to come and say their bit were the Ministers of Police (Nathi Nhleko) and Public Works (Thulas Nxesi).

Nhleko presented his now famous report exonerating President Jacob Zuma from repaying any money. Opposition MPs did their best to give Nhleko a grilling, and their reservations – including the fairly obvious point that he couldn’t very well have come to any other conclusion given that he was appointed by the president – were noted in brief in the first draft report and even more fleetingly in the second. (The second draft report will not be the last.)

The committee also, of course, took a trip to Nkandla to see for themselves what was going on there. The conclusions from the visit were unanimous up to a point: that the workmanship of the upgrades was rubbish; that it would be “embarrassing” to receive a foreign head of state at Nkandla; that the swimming pool was a swimming pool which could be used for firefighting; and that the amphitheatre was not an amphitheatre but a terrace.

Nxesi subsequently took the committee through the disciplinary proceedings instituted against the officials who have taken the fall for malfeasance in the project. The committee, notes the second draft report, “was in agreement that State monies must be recovered from all persons that will be found guilty of wrongdoing that (sic) on the Project”.

That’s essentially all the two draft reports cover. Under ‘Findings’ and ‘Recommendations’, three words sit starkly: “To be discussed”.

Yet they haven’t really started being discussed yet, despite the fact that the committee’s deadline for the report is Friday – and there’s a lot else going on in Parliament on Thursday, not least Zuma’s Q&A in the National Assembly.

The past two days have instead been taken up with two issues: firstly, the short time MPs have had to read these draft reports; and secondly, their wording.

Opposition MPs on the committee have raised some form of objection to virtually every clause in the reports. ANC MPs accused them of trying to stall the process, but it’s also clear that the opposition wants to distance itself from the report in writing as much as possible. Some would say it’s a bit late for that – if they had wanted to register serious disapproval of the committee’s work, why participate at all? Why not boycott the process, as the Economic Freedom Fighters did? As late as Wednesday, the Democratic Alliance was trying to argue that the committee’s establishment at all was unconstitutional.

All parties were represented in this committee. We deliberated from day one,” ANC MP Doris Dlakude snapped on Wednesday afternoon. “Legitimate or illegitimate committee, they (opposition) were here to legitimise it”.

This seems to be the opposition’s precise fear, rather late in the day. To compensate, opposition MPs have fought to have their reservations registered in the report. ANC MPs have protested, meanwhile, that the opposition consequently wants the report to be detailed in a way that is unprecedented for parliamentary reports.

We can’t say she picked up a bottle when,” complained the ANC’s Mmamoloko Kubayi, by way of hypothetical example.

In particular, on Wednesday, the opposition objected to the fact that the second report reduced their grilling of Nhleko to the line: “Members posed questions to the Minister arising from his presentation and these questions focused on, amongst other things, his mandate, the construction of the cattle kraal, swimming pool, visitors’ centre and amphitheatre”.

When the time finally came on Wednesday for the committee members to get down to discussing the report’s findings and recommendations, the opposition MPs dug in their heels and demanded more time. This caused ANC MP Thandi Mahambehlala to accuse them of “playing monkey tricks”.

I don’t think we can refer to the work of the committee as monkey tricks,” chair Frolick said.

The Inkatha Freedom Party’s Narend Singh suggested rather wildly that perhaps the committee didn’t actually need to make any findings at all. Maybe they could just make recommendations, without findings, he proposed.

Mahambehlala called this a “rather funny question”, which she suggested was also “dodgy”.

How do you have recommendations without findings?” she asked.

At this stage of the game, anything seems possible.

Frolick had lost his patience by this time, calling it “extraordinary” that members of the committee “have not even thought about findings”.

I’m really not impressed,” Frolick concluded, abruptly adjourning the meeting with the air of a disgruntled headmaster. He told the opposition that their suggestions as to the report’s findings had to be on his desk by 8am on Thursday.

Whether the final version of the report reflects the full heat of the opposition’s disapproval or not is virtually irrelevant. Bar some act of God, the ANC’s majority on the committee will see the report approved, and its conclusion will be in support of Nhleko’s findings. It is all, in any case, a charade: as legal expert Pierre de Vos pointed out, the committee has no legal authority.

On Thursday this same committee will continue to haggle and quibble over phrasing and clauses. In the National Assembly, Julius Malema will be trying a more direct route towards holding the president accountable. DM

Photo: South African President Jacob Zuma attends the BRICS summit in Ufa, the capital of Bashkortostan republic, Russia, 09 July 2015. Ufa is hosting BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) and SCO (Shanghai Cooperation Organisation) summits on 9 and 10 July. EPA/IVAN SEKRETAREV / POOL

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