§ Whether he or the Presidency requested that security measures be installed at his private residence;
§ Whether he was at any stage informed of the cost of the proposed security measures;
§ Whether a notice declaring his private residence a National Key Point was served on him;
§ What he understood to be his responsibilities as the owner of a National Key Point;
§ What measures he took to secure his private residence as required by the National Key Points Act;
§ Whether he was advised that some of the cost of securing his private residence as a National Key Point would be recovered from him;
§ Whether he was presented by Mr Makhanya with the designs of the project;
§ Whether he received the letter consisting of a detailed report on the progress made with the project that was addressed to him by former Minister Mahlangu-Nkabinde on 5 November 2010;
§ Whether he received the document setting out the apportionment of cost for the project that was prepared by the Department of Public Works;
§ Whether Deputy Minister Bogopane-Zulu discussed the conversion of the fire-pool to a swimming pool with him and whether he was aware of the reasons for this conversion;
§ Whether he was consulted about the relocation of the households that were affected by the implementation of the project;
§ Whether he was opposed to more contractors working on the site during phase 2 of the project;
§ Whether Deputy-Minister Bogopane-Zulu discussed the design of the Military Clinic with him;
§ Whether he would be willing to disclose the amount that he paid for the construction of the new dwellings on his property;
§ How often he uses his private residence for official business;
§ Why he would prefer using his private residence for official business rather than one of the official residences available to him;
§ Whether he at any stage enquired into the cost of the project; and
§ If not, whether he as the head of state did not feel obliged to do so as a substantial amount of public money was obviously being spent.
The President eventually responded, not with clear answers to the 29 questions put to him, but with a statement on the matter.
In this statement, he noted that ‘I deem it neither prudent nor proper for me to comment particularly where the Public Protector has had access to a range of Ministers and officials properly tasked with this responsibility’.
Since most of the questions were not answered, the Public Protector wrote to him again on 8 October 2013, listing the outstanding questions.
The President responded, again not with the answers, but with a request for evidence to be furnished to justify the questions.
He also refused to provide proof of the bond.
Where evidence was necessary, which was only for a few of the questions, the Public Protector submitted these, as he had requested.
To this date, he has yet to reply and no further correspondence was received from him, which left a large number of the questions asked, unanswered.
Furthermore, in a letter sent to the Public Protector, responding to the Provisional Report on 14 February 2014, President Zuma accused the Public Protector's investigation of being ‘tainted by lack of proper procedure’ and he claimed that it lacked ‘integrity as this has been compromised by several leaks’.
What is crystal clear from the information set out above is that President Zuma treated the investigation with disdain, did not fully cooperate with it, blatantly ignored correspondence from a Chapter Nine institution, and failed to provide all the information requested of him.
No answers have ever been forthcoming and have a direct bearing on possible future impeachment proceedings. The basis of the charges, and the ultimate directive of Madonsela’s findings, was for Zuma, with the assistance of the National Treasury and the police, to pay back part of the total cost of upgrades that she found did not pertain directly to the security at the compound.
These include the visitors centre, amphitheatre, cattle kraal, chicken run, and swimming pool, all which total nearly R79m.
Jacques found a four year old report from the Fourth Pillar which indicated that one of the main contractors had a Chinese connection. He read the report:
‘In mid-November 2009,
when the public works department was already in a flurry over the increasingly
complicated security upgrades at President Jacob Zuma’s Nkandla homestead, the
director of one of its main contractors was rubbing shoulders with ANC top
brass in Guangzhou, China.
Pamela Mfeka, the sole director of Moneymine Enterprises, which was already on
site at Nkandla in 2009 doing private work for Zuma, was accompanied by her
husband, Michael Mfeka, on the five-day trip to the People’s Republic of China.
Pamela, who also owns Igugu Training and Investments and Igugu Functions Venue,
was a member of the delegation, organised by the African National Congress’s
Progressive Business Forum.
The trip was led by the African National Congress’s former treasurer general,
Mathews Phosa.
Michael Mfeka, who is not listed as a director of his wife’s companies, worked
as Moneymine’s project manager at the controversial Nkandla building site.
Towards the end of 2009, the department was already spending money it had not
secured -- it was following instructions from the Police and the Defence Department
for extensive and expensive security upgrades to Zuma’s private residence.
The estimated cost at that stage was R27.8-million; the projected cost by
October 2012 was R270-million.
In March 2010, a few
months after the China trip, the department’s Jean Rindel, who was overseeing
the Nkandla upgrades, explained why Moneymine had been appointed as a phase one
contractor despite the deviation from normal procurement procedures.
Rindel noted: ‘The owner of the property had appointed a contractor, Moneymine
Investments, to construct new accommodation at the site. The current status of
that project is that the contractor is on site and construction is 15%
completed. The state has the obligation to include the security measures in the
existing and the new accommodation’.
Rindel
noted that, as no other contractor could do the job, the work could not go out
on open tender.
‘It is essential that Moneymine construction be appointed under the negotiated
procedure to eliminate risks. The contractor is security cleared by the
National Intelligence Agency and is trusted by the owner of the property’.
‘It is thus essential that the same contractor, Moneymine Investments, be
appointed to complete the works,’ he wrote.
Shortly after the memorandum, Rindel’s pleas were answered in the affirmative,
despite the fact that Moneymine had in effect been appointed to do the security
installations and other works in the initial phase of the project.
In January 2011, the firm
Moneymine was again guaranteed work for phase two of the Nkandla Project.
Another department document suggests that the decision to go with a “negotiated
bid” at that stage was also indirectly prompted by Zuma: ‘A meeting was held
with Deputy Minister [of Public Works] Hendrietta Bogopane-Zulu (and other
senior officials) on 21 December 2010 in which she confirmed that the principal
[Zuma] indicated that he does not want other contractors on site in phase two’.
Phase two related mostly to the installation of additional ‘security measures’,
including 31 new buildings, police accommodation, bullet-proof glass and
installation of a security surveillance system.
Rindel and other public works department officials consistently motivated for
Moneymine’s appointments to be rolled over to ensure the ‘integration’ of
Zuma’s private upgrades with those works of the Public Works Department’.
The company was also handed the remainder of work left by Bonelena, which the department fired in April during phase three, for which Moneymine received an extra R3.47-million in cash.
Moneymine has also received a number of other lucrative contracts from the Public
Works Department.
Michael Mfeka said neither he nor his wife could comment on Moneymine’s
involvement at Nkandla. He said that they were ‘not allowed to talk to the
press’ and that the department ‘has all the information’. -- Additional
reporting by Xanthe Hunt
Jacques saw the connection between the imposed Architect Menzi Simelane and Michael Mfeka, Moneymine’s project manager on Nkandla. ‘Why would the owner of the main contractor and the project manager, her husband, be keen to visit Guangzhou in China. Again Jacques lifted from the Fourth Pillar the record of that visit.
The ANC's
Progressive Business Forum (PBF) yesterday (16 November 2009) returned from
Guangzhou, People's Republic of China, where it hosted a successful Tourism &
Trade Seminar over the period 12 - 15 November 2009. Over 80 South African Businessmen
and women accompanied the PBF.
ANC
Treasurer General Mathews Phosa and Minister for Social Development, Edna
Molewa accompanied the delegation. The CPC Vice- Minister for the International
Department, Li
Jingjun, as well as other senior officials from Beijing, the Guangdong Province
and City of Guangzhou also attended and addressed the seminar.
The
PBF worked closely with the China Economic Cooperation Council (CECC) and the
China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT) in
organising the event and for mobilising Chinese business delegates. The PBF also
entered into cooperation agreements with the two Chinese organisations.
The
event was organised in a manner intended to empower South African delegates in
doing business in China and to introduce the Chinese participants to the South
African economy. Pre-arrangements were also made whereby South African
companies were introduced to appropriate and similar Chinese enterprises for
the purpose of exploring trade and investment opportunities, and to introduce
businesses to each other in order to
establish relationships between them, which could potentially lead to mutually
beneficial trade. In terms of the agreements entered into between
the PBF, the CECC and the CCPIT, companies can in future also work through these
organisations in order to make contact with like-minded
enterprises.
The PBF has been embarking on trade missions such as this since November 2008 in order to give further practical content to the bi-lateral trade agreements between the two countries. The primary intention is to broaden the global footprint of South Africans in the developing world, and to further promote South-South trade relationships’.
Jacques wondered about the Zwelithini, Zuma and the Chinese link to Zumaville and Nkandla and whether all of this tied into the Chinese investing in Nkandla, Cornubia and the KwaZulu Natal Northern Growth Corridor. Surely major contracts were involved in the infrastructural upgrades.
********************
A member of the Fourth Pillar nostalgically wrote a piece on Nkandla:
‘I knew Nkandla before it was a thing? I used to drive past it on my way home to Gingindlovu, on that drive I miss so much. From Johannesburg, I used to leave the N3 at Villiers and head through Memel and Vrede, down into Newcastle and across to Vryheid, and then skim past Ulundi and Nkandla on my way down to Melmoth and Eshowe.
The Western Cape, with some reason, gets a lot of the plaudits. But, at the right time of day, I’m not sure there is a more beautiful part of our country than the hills of Zululand. There is softness to the light there, a light that some cinematographers often labour to reproduce and so seldom get right. Dennis Hopper caught it for the happier moments in Easy Rider. George Roy Hill got it right in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid. But it is so special that it’s all but impossible to reproduce.
It is breathlessly hot in summer, sending crickets and cicadas into a frenzy. If there’s a breeze, it ripples lazily through the cane, never in a hurry.
Nkandla Forest is an indigenous mist-belt forest that sports astonishing biodiversity and birdlife. It is cut through with deep gorges, waterfalls and soaring trees. It is also a place full of myth and history, and features in Zulu lore as a place of refuge and retreat. The name itself derives from a word meaning to wear out, or tire.
It was to Nkandla — a natural redoubt at the top of the 15m Mome waterfall — that, in 1883, King Cetshwayo fled after his homestead at Ondini was attacked by a rival. Cetshwayo had been in exile in London and on his return the kingdom, shattered as it had been by the British at Ulundi in 1879 and divided into compartments by the colonial government, had descended into feuding and civil war. Incidentally, in his king’s defence, one Ntshingwayo Khoza was also killed at Ondini.
Khoza had commanded the king’s forces at iSandlwana, where Britain had suffered its greatest ever colonial defeat, a shock that would reverberate around the world but, perhaps, surprised nobody who really knew the Zulus. It was an ignominious end to a scandalously overlooked great South African.
Cetshwayo died a few months later at Eshowe. The spot is marked with a slightly depressing monument in the middle of a traffic island. The king is buried in a remote part of Nkandla Forest. His grave site is cared for by the community there, and it is notoriously hard to find and a good 4x4 is required. I have never been but with permission one day I hope to get there.
Khoza’s grave was unmarked and, so far as I am aware, its location has been lost. Chief Bambatha kaMancinza also sought refuge from Natal colonial forces during the Bambatha rebellion at Nkandla.
I suppose the most heartbreaking thing about the story of independent KwaZulu is that its founding by King Shaka in the 1820s and its demise in 1879 are separated by much less than a healthy human lifespan. It is said that the old folk who witnessed the humiliation of Cetshwayo could remember a time before the Zulus were more than just a family.
This history lives and breathes in the hills around Eshowe, Melmoth and Nkandla. It’s tangible and beautiful, a persistent reminder that this place is different, that these unassuming little places are at the heart of the Mfecane history of civil upheavals and the implications that followed for the subcontinent. If you haven’t been, you really should go.
But, of course, Nkandla’s real history now faces popular oblivion in the face of this grotesque thing that President Zuma has done there. For me, Nkandla has always been about an extraordinary history and an extraordinary people; a semi-secret, almost sacred place at the centre of one of our country’s greatest stories, and of one of our most storied peoples.
I suppose it will forever be my privilege that it still is. Zuma will go one day, and people will not seek out his headstone. In all of the anger about what he has done (or not done), I find great catharsis in this epitaph’.
************************
Jacques remembered a long forgotten piece of wisdom from Confucius on Democracy:
‘From the loving example of one family, love extends throughout the state; from its courtesy, courtesy extends throughout the state; while the ambition and perverse recklessness of one man may plunge the entire state into rebellion and disorder’.
***********************
Finally, late on April 8, 2014 it was reported by the Beeld newspaper that National Assembly speaker Max Sisulu had decided to investigate the Nkandla report before the May 7 elections.’
Sisulu had decided to set up a multiparty parliamentary ad hoc committee to consider Public Protector Thuli Madonsela’s report about costly security upgrades to President Jacob Zuma’s private home in Nkandla, KwaZulu-Natal.
The mandate of the ad hoc committee is to consider the submissions by the President in response to the Public Protector's Report and make recommendations, where applicable.
The ad hoc committee would be made up of seven African National Congress members, two from the Democratic Alliance, one from the Inkatha Freedom Party, one from the Congress of the People, and another single member from an unnamed party.
It would determine its own procedure, frequency and time of its meetings.
‘The committee is to report no than later April 30, 2014,’ Parliament said.
Madonsela had published her report on Nkandla on March 19.
Among the findings were that Zuma unduly benefited from the upgrades to his KwaZulu-Natal homestead, and that he should pay back a portion of the money.
********************
In terms of the Executive Members’ Ethics Act of 1998 the Public Protector is also empowered to investigate breaches of the Executive Ethics Code passed in terms of the Act.
Section 2.3 of the Code of Ethics state that Members of the Executive (which includes the President and any other member of the cabinet) may not wilfully mislead the legislature to which they are accountable; act in a way that is inconsistent with their position; use their position or any information entrusted to them, to enrich themselves or improperly benefit any other person; expose themselves to any situation involving the risk of a conflict between their official responsibilities and their private interests; or receive remuneration for any work or service other than for the performance of their functions as members of the Executive.
*********************
Nkandla is SA’s Watergate moment. ‘Watergate was forty years ago, but memories of a secret security project gone very badly rogue and that ended up being traced right into the president’s office – and a whole host of lesser officials caught by its tendrils as well – came flooding right back as the Public Prosecutor’s briefing took place on television. In the end, in Watergate, a president was compelled to resign rather than face being found guilty in a vote by the US Senate, so maybe the end game will be rather different; it is still early days’- Pierre de Vos
‘Nkandla is very damaging to the ANC. I think they will lose votes because of it. I think Jacob Zuma is in trouble. I cannot see how the opulence of Nkandla won’t be very damaging.
The fact that Public Protector Thuli Madonsela is fighting this with so much courage is an enormous plus for the South African constitution and for our ability to attract foreign investment’ said veteran South African Politician Dr. Alex Borain.
‘This is our Watergate moment. If Nixon had managed to suppress the evidence, what kind of America would have emerged? That is the kind of moment we’re all in right now’
*********************
City Press reported on April 13, 2014: ‘The ANC is deliberately delaying the work of the parliamentary ad hoc committee of inquiry into the improvements to President Jacob Zuma's private homestead in Nkandla to let him off the hook’, says DA federal chairman Dr Wilmot James’.
James told a DA public meeting in Hartenbos, outside Mossel Bay in Western Cape, at the weekend that he was certain the ANC in parliament would take the full 10 days it was allowed to nominate its members to the ad hoc committee.
He said this would, in reality, leave the committee with only two days to finish its work, given the April 30 deadline and the number of holidays in between.
James said ‘the Nkandla saga showed that Zuma behaved like an old-style king who enjoyed living in luxury while those regarded as his subjects wallowed in abject poverty’.
As we approach the May 7, 2014 elections in South Africa Jacques thought it appropriate to remember James Myburgh’s informative report released prior to the last elections where Jacob Zuma prevailed with monetary assistance from, inter alia, China.
Is the ANC selling out our sovereignty?
James Myburgh
24 March 2009
‘In its section on party funding in Africa the IDEA handbook notes that those sources of funding most incompatible with democracy are kickbacks from recipients of government contracts and other largesse, diverting state resources to the governing party through front organizations, and donations from foreign sources such as business owners, multinationals and governments. In addition in many African countries the use and abuse of state resources is a corrupt form of massive public funding available only to the governing party.
The advantages that can accrue to ruling parties are a major contributing factor to democratic atrophy in Africa. As IDEA notes: In many African countries Governing parties' use of state resources, with evident impunity, and their brazen demand for and acceptance of kickbacks explain much of the apparent electoral impregnability of many African governing parties, even those with clear records of economic and human rights failures. They manage to build such formidable electoral war-chests that their impoverished opponents usually have little chance.
Apart from donations from foreign sources, there is already much evidence in the public domain of the ANC using these other dubious means to advantage itself and se