Zuma: I want to pay but ...
PRESIDENT TELLS CONCOURT HE WAS WILLING TO PAY SOME NKANDLA COSTS BUT LASHES OUT AT THULI FOR PLAYING ‘ MONEY JUDGE ’
PRESIDENT Jacob Zuma is willing to pay back some of the millions used for the non-security upgrades to his Nkandla homestead.
This is contained in Zuma’s written submissions to the Constitutional Court, which the EFF wants to order the president to pay back the money used for the nonsecurity upgrades to his homestead.
However, in the papers he doesn’t indicate whether or not he has asked for the bill.
Zuma made the submission on October 16 and the matter is set down for February. Zuma wants the matter to be dismissed.
“The president, quite correctly, indicated his willingness to make a reasonable contribution to any upgrades that are found not to be security related and that will benefit his estate unduly,” read Zuma’s written submissions.
But Zuma also warned that public protector Thuli Madonsela’s remedial action instructing him to pay a reasonable portion of the costs of the non-security upgrades was not meant as an order “nor should the president personally determine what, if any, to pay, lest he be accused of being ‘ judge and jury’ in his own case”.
“Nothing in law or on proper interpretation of the remedial action obliges the president to accept the public protector’s report as if it constitutes a money judgment … It is prudent therefore for the president to be removed as the decision-maker from that process of determining any amount payable.”
The contention that an individual must comply with such conclusion as if it comprises a judgment of a court of law, unless he or she specifically reviews it, is quite extraordinary and such a conclusion could not have been intended in chapter nine of the constitution, according to Zuma.
Zuma said at no stage did he indicate an unwillingness to pay once a reasonable portion of the reasonable costs of specific items has been determined.
Earlier this year, Police Minister Nathi Nhleko announced that Zuma was not liable to pay for the expenditure on non-security upgrades but the president believes that the facts regarding the specific items would be considered and the decisionmaker may determine there is something or nothing to be paid in respect of some or all of the specific items.
“Our contention is that it is proper and fair to allow that process to conclude before subjecting the president’s actions to judicial scrutiny, ” said Zuma, accusing the EFF of political expediency.
In her response to the EFF’s case filed last Wednesday at the Constitutional Court, Madonsela said her findings cannot be simply ignored or diluted by another organ of state and that her findings cannot be ignored or second-guessed by the government because this undermines the rule of law.
Madonsela said she is a proactive and not a passive investigator and that she is a constitutional safeguard of clean government.