This follows the letter of lawyers presented on behalf of Zuma to propose an end to the drawn-out legal controversy regarding the public protector’s March 2014 report on Nkandla: ‘Secure in Comfort’, the Presidency said in a statement on Tuesday evening.
“While President Zuma remains critical of a number of factual aspects and legal conclusions in the report, he proposes a simple course to implement what the public protector recommended as remedial action contained in the report.”
“To achieve an end to the drawn-out dispute in a manner that meets the public protector’s recommendations and is beyond political reproach, the president proposes that the determination of the amount he is to pay should be independently and impartially determined.
“Given the objection by one of the parties to the involvement of SAPS, as the public protector herself had required, the auditor general and minister of finance be requested by the court, through appropriate designees, to conduct the exercise directed by the public protector.”
The Presidency said that the proposal is made in the letter directed on Tuesday by the president’s attorneys to the Registrar of the Constitutional Court. The court is due to hear the matter on February 9 2016.
The statement said, with regards to the upgrades at Zuma’s Nkandla home that how those irregularities happened continue to be investigated in separate inquiries relating to officials and professional consultants on the project.
“The report specifically found no wrongdoing of any kind by the president. It also found no benefit for which the president could to any degree be required to compensate the state in relation to nearly all aspects of the project.
“But in relation to five features of the private homestead the report directed a further process to be carried out by National Treasury in conjunction with SAPS. This is to determine firstly a reasonable proportion of the item in question for which the President should recompense the State, and secondly the reasonable cost in that regard.
“The actual amount that the President is required to pay was not determined by the Public Protector who limited herself to setting out this process for the amount to be determined.”
Zuma also opposed what the DA and EFF are seeking with regards to their application directly to the Constitutional Court for orders declaring that the steps taken by Zuma to give effect to the public protector’s remedial action are unconstitutional.
They added that Zuma “also supports the need for finality in the matter of the Public Protector’s report”.
“However, he believes and contends in his affidavits filed in court that the DA and the EFF have misinterpreted and/or are manipulating the Public Protector’s report for the purposes of political expediency.”
They concluded by saying that “none of the EFF, the DA and the public protector have responded to the President’s proposal, which was made in his answering affidavit in November last year”.
“It will now be for the court to decide if the offer is an appropriate basis for an order when the applications are argued on February 9 2016.”
Meanwhile, SLM news editor Sydney Morweng reports that, last week’s ANC NEC Lekgotla is reported to have convinced the President to succumb and follow what the PP report recommended.
IFP in Gauteng has also welcomed the decision.
But the public believes the move is motivated by forthcoming Municipal Elections, were the ANC has lost Constittuents in major metropolitan areas.
With the State of the Nation Address next week, the President is expeted to address key issues such economy, education, pension funds, security, unabridged certificate controversy and others.
We trust EFF and other political parties will not again disrupt the address.
