Zuma's ANC only cares about one Nkandla resident

Water and Environmental Affairs minister Edna Molewa's visit to Nkandla today is a shameless election ploy. Where was the ANC's care for the people of Nkandla before the media spotlight turned towards the President's R246 million private homestead built with public money?

The fact of the matter is that the ANC is now going to Nkandla repeatedly, because they are embarrassed of the fact that STATS SA has found that no progress has happened in Nkandla in the last 20 years. 

They are spending hundreds of millions on President Zuma's home, and nothing on the people of Nkandla. It is the perfect example of what has become of the ANC under President Zuma. The party has changed. Under Jacob Zuma's ANC, the party no longer cares for the poor. They are too busy enriching the connected elite. There are not enough resources left to benefit others.

There are still 10.2 million people living below the food line. 56.6% of people in KZN live in poverty. The full report can be seen here. We can't spend hundreds of millions on a house for one man when so many of our people still suffer in poverty. 

This visit is an insult to the families that were forcibly removed to make space for Zuma's mansion. Four neighbours within a radius of 50 metres of Zuma's homestead were forced to move for security reasons at a cost of nearly R8 million to the state. Yet this was not the case for those neighbouring former presidents Nelson Mandela, Thabo Mbeki and Kgalema Motlanthe.

Public Protector Thuli Madonsela's Nkandla report found that money set aside by the Department of Public Works for service delivery programmes to the area was instead diverted for the upgrade of Zuma's compound.

This kind of corruption takes money away from the people, and keeps poverty entrenched. We must break corruption by voting out the ANC on 7 May.

Statement issued by Sizwe Mchunu, DA KZN Leader, April 8 2014

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