DA calls for multi-party parliamentary committee on Zuma misleading Parliament

13 April 2016

I have written to the Speaker of the National Assembly, Baleka Mbete, requesting the establishment of a multi-party parliamentary committee to investigate whether President Zuma misled Parliament in relation to the upgrades at his Nkandla homestead.

Lying to the National Assembly is a very serious breach of the Rules of Parliament. While the President is not a Member of Parliament per se, he is most certainly bound by the rules of the National Assembly when he appears in the House.

In a number of oral question sessions in Parliament, between 2012 and 2015, the President refused to acknowledge that anything wrong had been done at Nkandla, suggesting that he had paid for the upgrades with a private mortgage, and that all of the upgrades were planned privately by his family. 

We have submitted a number of excerpts from the Hansard to the Speaker, for consideration by this committee. It is clear upon reading these excerpts that there is at least a strong prima faciecase that the President deliberately misled the National Assembly, to avoid scrutiny on the Nkandla matter.

President Zuma has been running from the Nkandla saga for the better part of five years, dodging accountability, and refusing the take responsibility for the fact the he unduly benefitted from public money to the tune of R250 million.

While the ANC constantly protect this one man from accountability, I am committed to ensuring that no person can be above the law at the expense of the South African people, whether that be the President or not. That is not the Constitutional dispensation we envisaged 20 years ago.

The Democratic Alliance has consistently held the position that the President knowingly benefited from the material upgrades at his Nkandla residence, and we will do all in our power to ensure the President – and all others implicated – are held to account.

Issued by Mabine Seabe, Spokesperson to the DA Leader, 12 April 2016