Agang South Africa : Zuma Must Come Clean on Nkandlagate

The latest revelation by the Mail & Guardian (July 6), showing how costs on President Jacob Zuma's palace at Nkandla, built with public money, had ballooned tenfold to R270 million are a cause for serious concern.

Equally disturbing is the revelation that the President was much more intimately involved with the project than he has cared to admit, and the extent to which government officials were prepared to bend the rules to please him. He can't, therefore, claim ignorance.

Add to that the unseemly attempts by Public Works Minister Thulas Nxesi to cover up the abuse of public money to make the President live like a king in the face of grinding poverty - this is a scandal of mega proportions.

This is an outrage.

Agang South Africa, in line with its commitment to promoting integrity and accountability in public office, calls on President Zuma to come clean and explain to citizens the following issues raised by the M&G expose:

• Short cuts on tendering processes in a scramble to meet deadlines set by Zuma
• Shifting of money from other projects to accommodate the unbudgeted spending
• Project implementation with few proper cost controls and no allocated budget or limit on spending
• Reluctance to allocate costs to Zuma, including for the building of a new cattle kraal, a plant nursery, a road network and other improvements that will benefit his family long after his presidency
• Paying out of an underperforming contractor who threatened court action that could have caused Zuma embarrassment

Dr Mamphela Ramphele, leader of Agang SA: "President Zuma must account to the people of South Africa. As the head of state of a constitutional democracy, he is obliged to lead by example in upholding the values of the constitution. This is an opportunity for him to show that he does not consider himself above the constitution and respects the precepts of accountability and integrity. This is also an opportunity for the ANC to demonstrate that its statements of commitment to fight corruption are matched by action without fear or favour."

Statement issued by AgangSA, July 7 2013

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