The ANC's about-turn on Nkandlagate is a predictable move 

1 June 2014

Reports today indicate that the Ministers in the Security Cluster have now decided not to pursue the dubious legal action against the Public Protector, Adv Thuli Madonsela for the damning report against President Jacob Zuma released earlier this year (see City Press report). 

These Ministers had been carrying out a clear mandate directly from Luthuli House to protect President Zuma from accountability after the scandal involving R246 million expenditure on his Nkandla home exploded and became one of the biggest corruption scandals in democratic South Africa. 

The idea was to delay and disrupt this investigation for as long as possible so that this issue would not affect the ANC's ambitions for the general elections. 

This court action had been used as a scarecrow and was a chilling move even from a government that is being used to protect one man from scrutiny. 

This was a clear undermining of a constitutionally mandated Chapter 9 Institution and consequently, the undermining of the Constitution.

This will not go unanswered. 

The Public Protector made damning findings against President Zuma. She found that:

President Zuma tacitly accepted the implementation of all measures at his residence and has unduly benefited from the enormous capital investment from the non-security installations at his private residence.

The President failed to apply his mind to the contents of the Declaration of his private residence as a National Key Point and specifically failed to implement security measures at own cost as directed by it or to approach the Minister of Police for a variation of the Declaration.

His failure to act in protection of state resources constituted a violation of paragraph 2 of the Executive Ethics Code, and accordingly, amounts to conduct that is inconsistent with his office as a member of Cabinet, as contemplated by Section 96 of the Constitution.

This is why the DA has already requested the newly elected Speaker of the National Assembly, Baleka Mbete, to re-establish the Nkandla ad hoc committee that the DA asked for in Parliament. 

The DA has long held that this committee has the power and the mandate to investigate President Zuma's role in this scandal. We have also made no secret of the fact that should he be found to have violated the law and undermined the Constitution, Parliament must move quickly to remove him from office as provided for by the Constitution. 

Parliament is the institution that has elected him to this office and it has the power to fire him. 

South Africans deserve a President that respects the Constitution and the oath he undertook and not one that is preoccupied with self-enrichment and the looting of the public purse. 

Statement issued by James Selfe MP, Chairperson of the DA Federal Executive, June 1 2014

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