DA will welcome court challenge over Nkandla SMS
The DA welcomes the opportunity to go to court to defend our efforts to ensure accountability for the Nkandlagate scandal. We will tell the judge exactly what the rest of South Africa was told this past week - that President Zuma improperly and materially benefited from the R246 million so called ‘security upgrade' of his private home in Nkandla.
If anything, the ANC's statement this morning shows just how far the ANC under President Jacob Zuma has deviated from the proud legacy of his predecessors. Instead of doing everything possible to ensure that President Zuma is removed from office, and made to apologise for this wrong doing, they would rather spend their time and energy trying to hide the truth from the country.
This will not work. South Africans are rightly outraged by this serious maladministration which has diverted much needed public money from the poor in order to benefit one man. This is a shame that warrants the President being fired from his post, not blindly protected.
I would strongly recommend that the ANC read the Public Protector's report again, as it is clear that its leaders missed some key details. For their benefit, let me remind them of some of these:
President Zuma materially and improperly benefited from the security upgrades to his private residence;
His conduct violated the Executive Ethics Code, given effect to by the Executive Members' Ethics Act;
He ‘tacitly' accepted government implementations at his private home;
His immediate family improperly benefited; and
Both his government, and himself, did not fully cooperate with the Public Protector's investigation.
The ANC must also be reminded that President Zuma was asked to repay the costs of the following non-security line items:
The visitor's centre;
The chicken run;
The swimming pool;
The cattle kraal; and
The amphitheatre.
That is why the Public Protector said clearly in her report that this excessive expenditure added significant value to the President's private property.
The rot in Jacob Zuma's ANC has now reached crisis proportions. The leadership of the party can no longer see the difference between right and wrong. They see only through the prism of keeping power in the hands of President Zuma.
That is why we will see many more of these distractions over the coming weeks as the details of the report become clearer to South Africans.
The DA will continue to fight for the truth. We will continue to fight against corruption. And we will do everything possible to ensure that all those implicated - including the President - are made to answer for their wrong doing.
Statement issued by Lindiwe Mazibuko MP, Parliamentary Leader of the Democratic Alliance, March 22 2014
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