Johannesburg - Public Protector Thuli Madonsela has joined the EFF’s application to the Constitutional Court calling for President Jacob Zuma to be held accountable for failing to comply with her report on Nkandla.
“The main reason we have joined the application is really the issue of our powers. You will recall that the decision not to implement (it) was based on the feeling (that) our powers were suggestive,” Madonsela told The Star on Wednesday.
In August, the EFF filed papers calling for Zuma to be held accountable for failing to comply with Madonsela’s report and for National Assembly Speaker Baleka Mbete to be held responsible for not holding the executive to account.
They have also called for Police Minister Nathi Nhleko’s report – which exonerates Zuma of any misconduct – to be declared a breach of the constitution.
Madonsela released her Nkandla report in March last year on investigations into Zuma’s controversial rural KwaZulu-Natal homestead. The “Secure in Comfort” report found that Zuma and his family had unduly benefited from the R246 million spent on non-security features at Nkandla – including a swimming pool, kraal, chicken run and visitors’ centre – and that he should pay back part of the money.
A report presented by Nhleko to a special parliamentary committee earlier this year found that the president did not have to repay any of the money spent on upgrades, claiming they were built for Zuma’s security.
On Wednesday, Madonsela said there was a view that what she found to be wrong might not be wrong and that the remedial action she suggested might not be rational. She added that her institution was subject only to the constitution and the law, and could not be compared to unrelated institutions such as the Electoral Commission.
Madonsela and the EFF are not the only organisations to take Zuma to court over Nkandla. The Council for the Advancement of the South African Constitution (Casac) on Monday lodged an application in the high court in Pretoria calling for Madonsela’s orders to be declared binding on Zuma and Nhleko.
“Unless her remedial orders are binding on the organs of state to which they relate, the power conferred on the Public Protector to take action is ineffective,” Casac’s executive secretary Lawson Naidoo said in a statement at the time.
“She (Madonsela) cannot exercise that power for the purpose for which it was conferred – namely, to protect the public against abuse of power by the state – if her orders do not have binding effect.” Additionally, Casac has asked the court to set aside Nhleko’s report.
“The constitutional purpose is subverted if it is some other state institution or functionary – and in practice often the implicated organ of state itself – who decides what remedy, if any, to implement,” Naidoo said.
The DA has also lodged an application in the Western Cape High Court in a bid to force Zuma to comply.
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The Star