This is a great day for SA - Deputy Public Protector

31 March 2016

Johannesburg – Deputy Public Protector Kevin Malunga has expressed joy over the Constitutional Court's finding on the Nkandla matter on Thursday morning.      

"This is a great day for the Public Protector as an institution, but it is a great day for South Africa...I have always said the public protector has teeth and they are not false teeth, in other words we are a watch dog, and we take everything seriously as we do our work," he said.  

Malunga also described the Public Protector as "the best friend of government". 

He said if the country took note of the mistakes that the Public Protector office had identified, they would be confident that they were hard at work to create a better government. 

"We are extremely proud, this was a beautiful judgment by Chief Mogoeng... 50 years from now we want to see a stronger Public Protector and a stronger institution," he said.   

Earlier on, the court found that President Jacob Zuma acted inconsistently with the Constitution when he failed to comply with the Public Protector's remedial action on the upgrades to his Nkandla homestead. 

Chief Justice Mogoeng Mogoeng said earlier in the unanimous judgment: "The president failed to uphold, defend and respect the Constitution."

Mogoeng also dealt with the powers of the Public Protector with regards to her remedial actions, saying specifically that her remedial actions against Zuma are binding.  

He also said that Madonsela was the "embodiment of a Biblical David... who fights the most powerful and very well resourced Goliath that impropriety and corruption by government officials are".

He also described Madonsela as a "constitutional gift" to South Africa.

This article first appeared on News24, see here.