This noble, unselfish gladiator (1918-2013) passed away recently leaving a clear and moralistic blue print for democracy, diplomacy and truth that will outlive all of the festering African Kleptocrats and new rogue colonialists.
In his tribute at Madiba's funeral service, President Jacob Zuma made a promise to the beloved icon: ‘We commit to work more intensively to deal a decisive blow against the persistent poverty, unemployment and inequality. Indeed, South Africa will continue to rise because we dare not fail you’.
The Fourth Pillar again called it right: ‘Now if the president is sincere about these salutary commitments, and honest with himself, he should start by resigning the presidency with immediate effect, before the inevitable recall. He must admit to himself that during his tenure he has been unable to come close to living up to any of the Mandela principles. In fact, he has already failed the great man.
True enough, he started out with Mandela as part of the struggle, but has strayed along the way, choosing rather to fraternise with criminal elements.
And it didn't end there. He proceeded to build himself a palace with taxpayers' money, money that could have been used to build more schools, clinics and homes for the poor. So his promised ‘decisive blow against persistent poverty’ has a hollow ring.
If he really respects the Mandela legacy (and in his heart of hearts he probably does) he should do the honourable thing by passing the baton to someone who, as the Malawian president put it on the same occasion, ‘loves and is loved by the people and is a respected leader and an honest one.
With this act, Madiba would in his inimitable way say to Zuma: ‘That is very good. We understand and still love you’.
Cliff Buchler, George
**********************
Jacques wondered why the Protector, Thuli Madonsela, having resisted pressure from four Cabinet Ministers and several other self-serving government sycophants, had not taken the final step in finding that Zuma had mislead Parliament. The expose tiptoed around the word ‘lied’. Most South Africans above the age of seven were of the opinion that he had lied. Notwithstanding, the Protector had shown immense courage in resting life-threatening pressure put on her by male individuals who had yet to attain the mental age of seven.
So outraged was one South African citizen named Visser, over the blatant theft of tax payers funds to finance Nkandla, that he laid through his lawyer the formal charge below against Zuma.
‘Advocate Madonsela found that Mr Zuma improperly benefitted from the Nkandla project in that certain expenditure incurred was of a private (that is, not security-related) nature. The expenditure was incurred in making improvements of a private nature to Mr Zuma's Nkandla residence at the time of upgrading security at Mr Zuma's residence.
Advocate Madonsela found that Mr Zuma improperly benefited from the unlawful expenditure of taxpayers' funds by the construction of a house (used by Mr Zuma and his family for, amongst other events, traditional ceremonies; expensive paving; a swimming pool; a cattle kraal and a chicken run at Mr Zuma's residence.
Advocate Madonsela found that Mr Zuma, directly or via his architect, gave instructions to Ministers of State, state officials as well as the de facto project leader of the Nkandla upgrades (who happens to be Mr Zuma's personal architect) to unlawfully divert taxpayers' funds to build the aforesaid private structures at his Nkandla residence. At the time Mr Zuma was aware that his actions were unlawful and constituted the crimes of theft of state (that is, taxpayers) funds; corruption in that Mr Zuma, both personally and via his private architect, unlawfully and intentionally, instructed and induced state officials to act contrary to their official duties and obligations by allocating state funds to build structures for Mr Zuma's private use, and fraud in that Mr Zuma, in full knowledge of the fact that state funds were misused during the Nkandla project to build structures for his private use at his Nkandla residence, misled the South African public and the Parliament of the Republic of South Africa by stating in in a parliamentary address that Mr Zuma and his family personally paid for all homes built at his residence whereas in truth Mr Zuma knew at the time that state funds were used to build a house and other private structures at the Nkandla residence.
I refer the detective(s) assigned to investigate these charges to the official report of the Public Protector that can be obtained from the offices of the Public Protector situated in Pretoria.
I reiterate that I as a taxpaying citizen of the Republic of South Africa have the right to lay these charges and request the SAP's detective branch to investigate these charges to the best of their ability. As a taxpayer, I pay a not inconsiderable portion of my earnings to the Fiscus and have the right to expect that my tax Rands be utilised by the State for lawful purposes only.
I suspect on reasonable grounds that my taxes and those of other taxpayers have been used by the State to benefit Mr Zuma in an unlawful and corrupt manner.
I reasonably suspect that the crimes occurred in the district of Nkandla and such other places where Mr Zuma gave instructions to Ministers of State, state officials as well as the de facto project leader of the Nkandla upgrades (who is Mr Zuma's personal architect) to unlawfully allocate state funds to build the aforesaid structures at Mr Zuma's Nkandla residence.
In conclusion, I have full confidence that the South African Police will conduct a comprehensive investigation into the aforesaid charges without fear or favour and thereafter place the docket before the Public Prosecutor once the investigation has been completed’.
The South African Police have opened the docket.
The opposition Democratic Alliance Party have similarly opened a docket at the Nkandla Police Station. Julius Malema’s Party has had a docket opened in Sunnyside.
The state's spending of R8.8-million on attorneys representing President Jacob Zuma over the past four years is a blatant act of discrimination, Congress of the People had said prior to the Nkandla Scandal.
‘This affirmed Cope's position that Zuma made no distinction between the money of the state and his own’, spokesperson Johann Abrie said in a statement.
‘As early as 2008, the Congress of the People warned South Africans that Zuma is a compulsive spender, unable to live within his means, and his understanding of the perks of his position is that it means access to unlimited cash,’ it said.
‘I hope someone checks the lease given by the Ingonyama Trust and King Goodwill Zwelithini so freely to Zuma’ thought a confused Jacques. ‘Does the R246 million spent to date on the Nkandla improvements to the property belong to South Africa, The South African Receiver of Revenue, Zuma or the Zulu Nation represented by the Ingonyama Trust?
Bruce Myburgh, a property specialist from Myburgh Attorneys in Pretoria, said: ‘A person cannot take out a bond on land they do not own. Only the person or entity registered at the deed office as the deed owner can take out such a bond on the property.’
He said this applied to property held in trust too.
‘The assets may even belong to a foreign power’ thought Jacques.
The DA have calculated the tax benefit received by Zuma to be R42.2m and this should be added to his annual salary of R2.6m and taxed at 40% and then recovered by SARS from Zuma.
What Jacques did know thus far was reported by City Press:
‘City Press this week obtained details of the leases for Zuma’s Nkandla homestead through access to information legislation.
The documents reveal that:
> The president pays R800 a month for the 8.9ha of land on which his sprawling complex is situated
> Zuma’s lease is for 40 years with an option to renew
> Public Works pays R1 300 a month for the 6.6ha it has leased adjacent to the president’s homestead
> A letter from a Public Works official in which the Ingonyama Trust – which owns the land – was given less than a day to agree to a permission to occupy
> Images attached to the lease application show that substantial security upgrades – including two large perimeter fences – had already been completed at the time the department and the president applied for leases.
Jacques wondered why so little had been made about the road infra-structure that was given priority to service the Nkandla homestead of the President. It reminded Jacques of the road between Umtata and Coffee Bay in the then Transkei. Kaiser Matanzima had similarly prioritized that particular road for his personal use. The Fourth Pillar had previously reported: ‘Two new road networks worth R582 million have been built in President Jacob Zuma’s village in KwaNxamalala, Nkandla’.
KwaZulu-Natal transport MEC Willies Mchunu also opened two pedestrian bridges across the Nsuze and Mposa rivers in the greater KwaNxamalala area. These would link villages to schools and cost R4.5 million.
According to the Mercury, Mchunu said the projects were considered before Zuma became president.
‘In fact former president Thabo Mbeki identified Nkandla and Msinga as priority areas needing development. This has nothing to do with President Zuma,’ Mchunu said.
*******************
Jacob Zuma has also before defended the building of a new town near Nkandla, saying it is part of government's strategy to improve the conditions of rural people.
‘The president has not instructed ministers to provide funding and a budget for the Nkandla-Mlalazi Smart Growth Centre,’ he told Parliament during a question and answer session.
He conceded that the rural development and land reform department supported the Masibambisane Rural Development Initiative with the detailed planning of the Nkandla initiative.
In August 2010, the Mail & Guardian reported on the R2-billion development being built just 3.2km from Zuma’s home. Half of the cost is set to be carried by public funds with the other half coming from private investment. Jacques again wondered ‘Chinese perhaps?
The ‘emerging town’ of Zumaville, which will cover 200 hectares and could comfortably accommodate 10 000 middle class homes, is envisaged to include government facilities, including offices for home affairs and social development; new community facilities, such as a library, theatre and recreation centre; a new school with boarding facilities; a community safety centre and additions to an existing clinic, a recreation centre featuring a swimming pool and tennis courts, light industrial units, including an agricultural market and housing centred around community gardens.
The project is the brain child of Masibambisane, a rural development organization that Zuma chairs. It’s believed that the agriculture department was also set to make an R800-million contribution to the organization for the project.
Government later clamped down on information concerning the project, with former government spokesperson Jimmy Manyi saying any information on the development would be contained in annual reports submitted to Parliament and that interested parties should monitor the presentations and interact with information they contained for further details.
Zuma said no other national departments had made commitments to the delivery of facilities and infrastructure on the site and that the smart centre was part of a provincial programme to revive small rural towns and formalise rural unplanned towns and urban settlements.
He said other towns that would benefit from this programme included Ndumo, Manguzi, Msinga, Mbumbulu, Nkandla, Charlestown, Jozini, Ngwavuma, Dududu, Weenen and Colenso.
‘It is important to emphasise that even at a national level, Nkandla is not the only district that is receiving attention for rural development,’ he said. Zuma listed 23 districts that had been identified by government for interventions to alleviate poverty.
Many of the programmes Zuma mentioned were small in scale – involving infrastructure development and upgrades like the building of roads, bridges and walkways, crèches and recreational facilities.
He said the rural development and land reform department is working with the Sekhukhune district municipality to plan ‘a rural node similar in size and scope to the Umlalazi-Nkandla Smart Growth Centre, for the Jane Furse Township’.
‘It is a pity that only Nkandla seems to generate interest,’ he said.
DA parliamentary leader Lindiwe Mazibuko asked whether Zuma could ‘justify the spending of R2-billion in one area that just happens to be just 3km from his homestead, while other areas a few kilometers away are without the most basic services’.
In response Zuma said: ‘Why should people at Nkandla, 3km from where Zuma stays, starve? Why must they be isolated? Why should others who are in other areas be more important than those? Should they be punished because they are neighbors of Zuma? I don’t think so’.
He said that Nkandla was well-known for being a poverty stricken area and that development was also happening in many other rural areas but that ‘you don’t talk about those’.
He defended the variable spending by the rural development department different areas, saying: ‘The money will never be the same, one size fits all. The developments are not the same.’
Zuma said he would ‘never be embarrassed by development in rural areas’ and ‘that rural development had to start somewhere’.
Last August, Mazibuko said she would formally ask the chairman of the standing committee on public accounts (Scopa), Themba Godi, to investigate why the government had decided to spend so much money on a single village when the money could have been spread across many impoverished rural areas in KZN.
This after Mazibuko had said
formally to Max Sisulu in July 2012: ‘I will today
write to the Public Protector, Adv. Thuli Madonsela, and request that she
extend her respective investigations into the upgrade of President Zuma’s home
at Nkandla, and the spending of R2-billion on ‘Zumaville’, to include the
possible improper benefits afforded to members of President Jacob Zuma’s family
using diverted state resources at Nkandla in KwaZulu.
This after reports today allege that Michael and Joseph Zuma had supplies worth
R545,249 by Electricity Company Voltex delivered to their homes as part of the
‘prestige project’ – the same project which has been used to pay for the
upgrade to President Zuma’s private home in Nkandla.
I will also send this most recent development in the ‘Nkandlagate’ scandal to
the Speaker of the National Assembly, Max Sisulu, to further justify my call
for an urgent Parliamentary Inquiry into this matter. It cannot be acceptable
for Parliament to remain silent, while skeletons continue to tumble out of
President Zuma’s Nkandla closet daily.
Using public funds for the unjustifiable benefit of any individual is not only
grossly unethical but it also stands in clear violation of the Executive Ethics
Act of 1998, which prohibits Cabinet Members, Deputy Ministers and MEC’s from
doing the following:
Using their position or any information
entrusted to them to enrich themselves or improperly benefit any other person
On Sunday, the DA’s representative on Scopa, Dion George, had criticized Mzobe’s involvement in another alleged scandal, a R1-billion food-for-the-poor development.
Speaking to the Cape Argus, George said both the more-recent food matter, as well as ‘Zumaville’, would be the subject of investigations by the DA’s team on Scopa, ‘with a view to them both being discussed formally and publicly at Scopa’.
Last October, Public Protector Thuli Madonsela announced that her office would investigate ‘Zumaville’ - Cape Argus.
On May 4, 2014 the Sunday Times reporter Bongani Mthethwa said that Jacob Zuma was pressing ahead with the plan to build South Africa’s first ‘post-apartheid town right on his Nkandla homestead’s doorstep. The project was known as the Umlazi-Nkandla Smart Growth Centre and challenges that had previously been encountered would be resolved in the next few weeks.
Jacques wondered if this related to an assured outcome in the May 7, 2014 elections. He also pondered whether the ‘Private Investors’, mentioned but not named by Uthungulu District Municipality Mayor Thembeka Mchunu in regard to the financing of Zumaville, could possibly be from another colonising force from another continent.
Municipal Manager Sthembiso Mthembu of the Nkandla Municipality, which reports to Uthungulu District Municipality, said that he knew nothing about this development, other than what was reported in the press. He wondered why Nxamalala was chosen for the intended development when in fact more people lived in Nkandla. The population of Nxamalala is 3,316 with a 56,47% unemployment rate and the youth unemployment rate of 60%
Questions by the Sunday Times reporter addressed to Mtobeli Mxotwa, the spokesperson for the Department of Rural Development, drew no response.
Zuma’s cousin and co-chair of the Masibambisane Development Initiative, Sibusiso ‘Deebo’ Mzobe, is driving the Zumaville Project. A feasibility study completed reveals plans to spend:
· Mamba One Stop Development Centre R12,8m
· Lindela Thusong Service Centre 14,2m
· Educational Facilities R179,0m
· Agricultural & Industrial Facilities R146,0m
· Commercial Facilities R68,0m
· Environmental Facility R46,0m
· Government Complex R69,0m
· Housing R136,0m
An astute Free Press spoke to its audience ‘His reaction to the
Nkandla scandal and his refusal to ever accept responsibility for his actions
bring questions of morality, integrity, leadership and his understanding of
democratic and legal process into the equation. He also does not act like
someone who knows his tenancy of the Presidency is at the mercy of those very
processes, his party and the voters, nor does he act like someone who is about
to serve his final term as President of the Republic of South Africa.
Given Zuma’s actions over his entire term as president and given the ANC’s wish
for a two-thirds majority in the upcoming general election in order to be able
to change the Constitution, it is perhaps time to ask the critical question:
will Zuma be prepared to step down and relinquish power at the end of his final
term, or will he finally complete the Zimbabwefication of South Africa, change
the Constitution and stay on in the Presidency as one of Africa’s Big Men, the
next Robert Mugabe, making South Africa his personal fiefdom?’
Zuma responded to Parliament on the fourteenth day as required by Madonsela’s Report.
In the statement Zuma has decided that he will give full and proper consideration to the matter only once he receives a report from the Special Investigating Unit (SIU). The SIU is also investigating the R246-million upgrades at the president’s request. Only once its investigation is concluded, will Zuma provide Parliament with any interventions he considers appropriate.
The S